Franklin County Residents (Richmond, Roanoke, Salem: transplants, real estate market, insurance)

[netyron]

as most of you know already after you received your tax assessments lately , franklin county residents taxes have almost doubled for about 98 % of the county
we are putting together a town meeting and we need to know if anyone is interested in attending to discuss the new tax assessments
the meeting would be held at lakeshore terrace subdivision off coopers cove road near hardy, va
if we have enough people interested we can invite a franklin county official to attend the meeting and then can discuss the reasoning why our taxes got such a large increase in little more than 2 years from the last assessment
please email you interest since we need some idea as to the number of people who would be attending

the deadline is november 23 for emailing an interest in this meeting so we can set it up for the following week

email me if you are interested in coming and the number of people you will be bringing

i will then email you the time of the meeting if enough people have an interest

time is a factor, so please respond as soon as possible

thank you for your cooperation

[Home4UnROA]

Please let me know if your meeting comes to fruition. I am most interestesd in attending and can probably get participants from the Windy Gap area. As a REALTOR here in Roanoke, and a resident of Windy Gap Mountain Village, I mailed a post card to all of the residents in our neighborhood to advise them that I would send them information regarding sold properties to use in their appeal and got a fair amount of response. If you can get this meeting together, I'll be happy to get out a mass email to our residents to take a pulse for level of interest. Feel free to email me at KBibb@aol.com.

[flu189]

As a possible future resident of your region I wish you luck in dealing with this issue. It would be a shame to let happen what has happened to so many other states and counties in terms of uncontrolled taxation as there really is no way in turning back.

[roanoker 4]

Realistically, your taxes in Franklin County are not high as compared to the Roanoke area. They just went up, like everywhere else. What can be done about rising property taxes? Virginia seems to like this option as opposed to taxing income, consumption, etc. I don't mean to sound rude, but you guys are growing at a fast clip and attracting affluent transplants to the Lake area.
I think the County feels if people can afford million dollar vacation homes, they can shell out more for basic public services. I would guess that many
new residents who move there laugh at the low property tax rate anyway.

[Home4UnROA]

FYI Roanoker 4, Not all property in Franklin County is Lake property or "million dollar vacation homes". The neighborhood in which I reside is a middle class one with homes in the median price range that does not receive "basic public services", such as trash pickup. If the rest of Roanoke saw the extreme increases that we did, there would be a black cloud hovering over the Valley from all of the stink that would be raised.

[seanpecor]

Roanoker 4, the property tax on my horse farm is increasing from $2,000 to $6,000 annually. That's a 300% increase in 4 years. My house and 16 acre family parcel taxes are increasing to $4,000. My understanding is that the $0.53 rate will drop such that the increase in the tax revenue base is made more modest by the reassessment.

I don't mind paying property taxes but the sense that my land is worth 300% more, particularly in light of the massive slowdown in the real estate market, is crazy. Especially when the market price I paid for the land was already elevated, and yet the assessment is 20% higher than the market prices I paid for the most recent land acquisition. Assessments are supposed to be 20% _lower_ not 20% _higher_ than market prices.

Sean

[roanoker 4]

I know where you guys are coming from. I own two homes, one in Roanoke City and one in Salem. I bought the Salem home as an investment 8 years ago. Its been a good investment but I'm wondering if these huge property tax hikes I'm seeing in Salem, not to mention insurance will force me to sell.
Salem tax went up about 150%, Roanoke City increased 52%.
In these two localities, there seems to be a constant increase. I don't know how frequent Franklin does its assessments.

[Waterfront]

Dear Franklin County folks,

This reassessment news is disheartening in light of the fact my wife and I just fell in love with the Boones Mill area on our last 'land hunt' there about a month ago!

We went through the same experience here in Northumberland County. We moved here from Richmond about 4 years ago. We just get settled in when the County announces they are overdue on their land reassessments (last one was 1999). So like Franklin, Northumberland County hires Wampler & Eanes to complete the reassessments. Our house and land winds us a bit more than doubled in assessed value from our 2004 completed construction assessment.

The saving grace was that the County decreased the tax rate from $ 0.61 per $100 to $ 0.36 per $ 100.00, but our total tax bill increased from $ 1,969.69 to $ 2,324.52. As a comparison, I have a neighbor who says he paid $ 9,000 a year in Minnesota, so this is like "living for free" to him.

For what it's worth, I personally know our Commissioner of the Revenue and I understand we had very few individuals that successfully contested their assessments. I understand that Wampler & Eanes actually re-evalutated properties they had already assessed when the real estate market surged in 2005-2006.

My wife and I were looking at the FC online real estate records for land near Naff Rd. and Wades Gap Rd. and it was very interesting to discover that side-by-side parcels would sell anywhere from $ 12,000 per acre to $ 40,000+ per acre! For farmland! No wonder the reassessment are through the roof!

Anyway I wish you all the best with this issue. Keep us posted 'cause we really liked that area of Virginia.

[seanpecor]

Yes, I am partly to blame for the land values going up in the Boones Mill zip code. I bought 38 acres for $8,400/acre in 2006 and 55 acres for $10,400/acre in 2007. I know folks who paid $10,500/acre in late 2006. In subdivisions (Cahas Green for example) people are paying $25,000/acre for 5 acre chunks. If they drop the tax rate from $0.53 to eat up 80% of the revenue gain I'd be satisfied. I would like to re-fi my farmland in Q1 2008 because I'm about 95% sure rates will begin climbing (and climbing) in Q2 or Q3. I've got dotcom entrepreneurs like myself who unlike me are heavy into distributables like electronics and such. They say inflation is just around the corner. All that has to happen is the draining of existing inventories and that will be taking place over Christmas and the first month or so of 2008. Once that happens, the crappy USD conversions will reach a tipping point and the fed is going to start watching inflationary pressures grow and start ramping up rates. Q1 2008 It's a good time to take advantage of low rates. You might have to wait a couple years at least to get rates this good.

Sean