Proposed property taxes in PSL (Miami: for sale, foreclosure, insurance)

[stevep111]

Yesterday I got a letter from the City about my property taxes. The letter had three proposals all of which had good points and bad points. The good news is that my taxes are going to go down at least 1K. The bad news is that in all three proposals my property has been devalued over 60K.

Now I understand why they are doing it (1 because they are required to) and 2 because by lowering the property values and taxes they are able to prevent more people from going into foreclosure by softening their tax burden.

The way I see it (and so does the City) by keeping more people paying taxes they will actually take in enough taxes to keep from having to cut services. It's just like volume sales. You cut the price and you sell more and in the end make more of a proffit.

What I see happening will be that once this is done the market will again flood with buyers and the prices will go back up.

Additionally the bad thing for the home owner that is paying their Mortgage and Taxes on time is that they are being forced to take on the burden of those who can't and have caused property values to plummet. I don't think this is fair but in this economy it is a reality that we have to accept.

What I am afraid of is that in the short term (I fully expect property values to go up next year) if I had to for some reason put my home up for sale, would I be able to get a qualified buyer to at least be able to break even. If not then what should happen in reality is the Federal Government should bail us out in the form of a tax break should this happen.

What are your opinions of this? Am I making sense or am I dead wrong?

It could be worse because here in Miami Dade where my primary home is the average person is paying well over 7K in taxes and over 3k in insurance. My insurance this year was $780. In Miami Dade the same house would be over 5K

[Synergy1]

We did too and our home value went down...Funny because I asked my builder friend and he said there is no way I can come close to building a home for what the City says you home is worth and we live on the water....

Two years ago we refinanced our home for a lower interest rate. The appraiser was OK but I got ticked at her when she valued a darn wooden fence on a so called comparable vaued home at $17,000 and the home was not close to water....
Our home is bigger and we have a pool. Pools can usually provide a home $5,000-10k in increased value but when the home with the fence not on the water and no pool, smaller in size appraised more than our home things need to be re-evaluated in the Appraislal business...

We again discoverd we could save over 120 a month so we again refied . Another joke because we had to pay for 2 appraisers and the first one again appraised our home lower than the second bank appraiser....A real mess and we were mad but we OKd the second appraiser which was appraised at $25,000k more than the first one....This is a real joke because how can each be appraisal be different and our home was $400,000 originally.

I will report the first appraiser to the proper people now that I think about it....