Re-assessment help (Fox Chapel, Millvale, Penn: sales, real estate, 2013)
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My house has been re-assessed and despite previously being under or very close to my neighbors' houses, it is now 15-30% more than my neighbors. In many cases the neighboring houses are clearly more desirable and would bring more money in a sale, yet they are far lower.
The differences I can see is that my house has been bumped from a previous Grade of C to a B and a condition of Average to Good. All the neighboring houses remain at Grade: C, Condition: Average.
My house was purchased only 2 years ago, and the assessment is close to what I paid, but I feel that knowing what I now know about the area, that I overpaid. I also know that 4-5 years ago, a neighboring house sold for much more than I paid for mine, is currently more desirable, yet now has a 30% lower assessment. Similar houses to mine have been sitting on the market unsold at much lower prices than what I paid, and were re-assessed at much lower values.
I have a bunch of questions:
1) Informal review vs Appeal.. It looks like the deadlines for both are very soon. I guess I have to choose one? Can I choose both? How would I choose one vs the other?
2) Why would my house be the only one bumped up?
3) What information would I take to prove the "grade" (apparently this is building materials) and "condition" of my house and its indifference from that of my neighbors?
4) Which taxes will this re-assessment affect? County, State, and School?
5) My house has increased 80% from the "2012 Market Value" listed on the tax assessment site. Is that really what they believed the 2012 Market Value to be? or is that the 2002 value? In other words, can I expect somewhere in the ballpark of an 80% increase in taxes?
6) Is there any way to see what the average increase is between the 2012 and 2013 values for the county or my area?
7) Will they be adjusting school, township and county taxes to use this assessment? Are all 3 of these subject to the "windfall" rule?
I can only aswer #1) since my house was also assesses at a 50% value increase and I appealed.
OK file that form on line. You'll get a date for your informal review where you have to go prepared with comparables and you have to explain why you feel your house was over-assesed. You will receive in the mail their decision. If you disagree with that you will appeal. Or so I understood.
If the assessment is close to what you paid, you have a tough case to prove. If you have a mortgage I'm sure the bank would not be happy seeing you overpaid.
Your best bet is to question the Grade, that is one of the biggest factors determining market value in a mass appraisal. It's quite possible they raised the grade to hit your sales price. You can complain all you want about your neighbors, but the bottom line is your sales price of a few years ago.
If the assessment is close to what you paid, you have a tough case to prove. If you have a mortgage I'm sure the bank would not be happy seeing you overpaid.
Your best bet is to question the Grade, that is one of the biggest factors determining market value in a mass appraisal. It's quite possible they raised the grade to hit your sales price. You can complain all you want about your neighbors, but the bottom line is your sales price of a few years ago.
The bottom line to me is that I am going to be paying 30% more in taxes when compared to every house on the street of similar value. This assessment alone will likely have a significant negative impact on my home's value.
1) Informal review vs Appeal.. It looks like the deadlines for both are very soon. I guess I have to choose one? Can I choose both? How would I choose one vs the other?
No, you can do both, and should if you think you have a good case that your home is overassessed. Note that is what you will have to prove, not that your neighbors were underassessed.
2) Why would my house be the only one bumped up?
It all depends on the computer model they are using and the data they have.
3) What information would I take to prove the "grade" (apparently this is building materials) and "condition" of my house and its indifference from that of my neighbors?
I don't know, but you should definitely find out.
4) Which taxes will this re-assessment affect? County, State, and School?
County, Muni, and School.
5) My house has increased 80% from the "2012 Market Value" listed on the tax assessment site. Is that really what they believed the 2012 Market Value to be? or is that the 2002 value?
2002. Calling it the 2012 value is another of the little tricks they are playing on the public to cause panic and confusion.
In other words, can I expect somewhere in the ballpark of an 80% increase in taxes?
Likely all three of the County, your muni, and your school district will be adjusting millages downward, so it will likely be less than an 80% increase in taxes paid.
6) Is there any way to see what the average increase is between the 2012 and 2013 values for the county or my area?
Supposedly the County is releasing more information soon, perhaps tomorrow. It may just be for the County or it could include information on specific jurisdictions. Note what you want is actually the increase in total value, which is mathematically equivalent to a weighted average.
7) Will they be adjusting school, township and county taxes to use this assessment? Are all 3 of these subject to the "windfall" rule?
There are two different anti-windfall laws, one which applies to school districts and one to other subdivisions (counties and munis).
Do you think "demographics" plays/played a role in these reassessments? Meaning, the OP said he bought this house 2 years ago, so that may make him potentially "younger" than the other residents in the area; leading to "potentially" he might have been looking for the "better schools"? his house was bumped up because he was in a different age group than his neighbors? therefore potentially other people like him might eventually move there and bring the area up in value?
I am trying to understand "why" they are reassessing? and what they are basing this on? considering the OP's circumstances....because it IS weird that one house gets bumped out of a bunch.....
PS I am thinking that "unless" there was some sort of remodeling done (e.g. additions, re-finishing the front, new landscaping, making someone think a lot has been done to the inside as well) etc, how else would they know if there were upgrades inside to increase the value of one home versus a bunch of others? It just doesn't add up right.
They don't have any demographic information about the owners.
Although the details are apparently proprietary and so not public, reportedly they are using a more or less standard computer model which collects data about each property and sales within a certain window, and then tries to deduce a market value for each property. Such a system is never going to be free from errors, sometimes because of data issues and sometimes because the model doesn't match the real world in some way. If close neighbors with comparable properties are getting wildly divergent values, it is a good bet the problem is on the data side, but you can't eliminate the possibility it is a modeling error unless you correct the data first.
Note this is the first reassessment since 2002--if we had been doing them more regularly, it is a good bet there would be fewer errors by now because more frequent reassessments lead to better data quality and more refined models.
By the way, they are reassessing because of a court case: it was found that different homes have seen very different appreciation rates since 2002, so using the 2002 numbers to allocate the property tax burden is unlawful under the Pennsylvania state constitution (this holding was endorsed by the state supreme court).
It just doesn't seem right to start reassessing with some computer model rather than factual information on different areas.
I mean yeah, there should be more reassessments done so that way there is more data available when someone is re-searching an area, or looking to buy in an area, but this is seems to be quite random, and not very "precise" for being done on a computer.
I mean this is almost like Google Local/Earth, but they have cars driving around collecting data on different areas, taking pictures, so there are clear visuals as to what an area might look like because they document every street/business on paper (or "notepads" or whatever they use for their databases) was this done the same? because if not, then how can they "asses" anything without "seeing it"? Like the OP...one house out of several being reassessed completely different...
I agree with the idea of "reassessing" a property, but if it not done with facts about that "named" property, then it is a rip of to the owners flat out! Now you're not only ripping them off just in taxes, for a property that might not be worth it, but in legal fees too, to get it all "re-assessed" again, and again until it is documented properly. How is THAT "OK"? or "LEGAL"? who said that it is "legal" to keep charging people money because the "state" or "city" has no idea how to do this? or they've done a booboo...and now homeowners have to pay out of THEIR pockets to get it fixed!?
The other thing is that on my block for example not much happened since 2002...meaning the road hasn't changed, the school rating hasn't changed...there aren't many ways in which ppl can add to their properties, so how can this be reassessed differently than it was back in 2002? I mean if you take one of the areas by the river that back in 2002 might have been still thriving, and now they are gone businesses wise, people wise, and you're left with a bunch of abandoned properties, then yeah, reassess THAT...but someone does have to walk or drive around before a "computer" starts reassessing this stuff.
What else was taken into account? inflation? real estate speculations?('ors)
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrianTH
They don't have any demographic information about the owners.
Although the details are apparently proprietary and so not public, reportedly they are using a more or less standard computer model which collects data about each property and sales within a certain window, and then tries to deduce a market value for each property. Such a system is never going to be free from errors, sometimes because of data issues and sometimes because the model doesn't match the real world in some way. If close neighbors with comparable properties are getting wildly divergent values, it is a good bet the problem is on the data side, but you can't eliminate the possibility it is a modeling error unless you correct the data first.
Note this is the first reassessment since 2002--if we had been doing them more regularly, it is a good bet there would be fewer errors by now because more frequent reassessments lead to better data quality and more refined models.
By the way, they are reassessing because of a court case: it was found that different homes have seen very different appreciation rates since 2002, so using the 2002 numbers to allocate the property tax burden is unlawful under the Pennsylvania state constitution (this holding was endorsed by the state supreme court).
1) If you file an informal appeal and its not adjusted to your liking, you will have 30 days to file a formal. This is speculation, but if you don't have some really compelling evidence to support your claim that your house is over assessed (appraisal, recent sale) you will likely be stuck filing a formal appeal.
2) Who knows. The process isn't transparent.
3) You'll have to somehow prove your house isn't any nicer or in better shape than your neighbors. Preferrably you will be able to compare your home to recent sales. Might be tough to do and will be your biggest challenge. If your home is worth a reasonable amount you may want to consider hiring a lawyer or getting an independent appraisal. At your expense of couse...
4) County, Municipality, and School (i.e. all your property taxes)
5) 2002 value
6) This information was published for some of the areas that had their assessments posted earlier (i.e. the eastern suburbs, mt oliver, city). I think it was in the post gazette, but don't remember for certain. Presumably it will be coming for the others too.
7) All your property taxes *should* be adjusted to make them "revenue neutral" (which is government speak is actually a small increase), how this will actually work in practice is open for speculation. But your tax *rates* will almost certainly go down some albeit doubtful enough to offset your 80% increase.
Ok, so now I just realized that I only have 3 comparables while all of my neighbors have 4. One is my own house from the 2010 sale, and the other 2 are both homes in Fox Chapel (I live in Shaler on the edge of Millvale) that are worth twice as much and have 1k more square footage..
It seems like they someone went above and beyond to make sure that my value went as high as possible.
I know that their argument will be that my neighbors being underassessed is unrelated to my case - but when they are determining the tax rate for the municipality it definitely will.
It was hard to me to assess the value of my home when moving here because we moved from out of state, and I live in a small neighborhood of original owners - there are not that many sales to compare to and every street was built at a different time. In our case we also had the maximum allowable "seller assistance" that isn't accounted for in the sale prices on the tax books.
And to algia's comment - we are definitely by far the youngest on the street. Now I am not only being penalized for a purchase price mistake but also for eternity by them changing the construction quality of my house. This could very well put me in a situation where my we can't afford to stay here and can't afford to leave either if the huge tax bill depresses our house value further.
Last edited by tranceFusion; 03-09-2012 at 08:07 AM..
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