Washington Real Estate Taxes (home, income, property tax)

[Tony1790]

I have several homes in Kitsap county, they are in town. One house the tax appraisal is around 168k, I think I pay around $1500 annually for that. My other home is $228k tax appraisal and something around $2200, but that home is being adjusted upwards to tax appraisal of 275k in 2007, all my other properties are as well.

But it's not too bad, I'm looking at moving to TN and the property tax is Much higher than here, even though I've always heard that it was low.

WA is a good state to come to, have fun.

Tony

[johnlvs2run]

Originally Posted by itsme2

a $500K house in Spokane East would be 500X15.08= $7,540 total taxes, correct?

That's $628 a month!!!! Yikes!!!!

Taxes in California are 1 percent of the appraised value, which is usually the purchase price. With local taxes this is around 1.11, and go up by 2 percent each year, i.e. the second year is 1.02 times the first year. Houses like this one were selling for 475k a year ago and now around 400k. Current taxes are $1200 a year.

Do Spokane properties get reassessed for taxes each year?

If you have 5-35 acres, are the taxes still based on assessed value of the property?

Colorado has an exemption for 35+ acres. Does WA have this too?

[johnlvs2run]

Here is more about Washington taxes.

"The State of Washington is authorized to levy a real estate excise tax on all sales of real estate, measured by the full selling price, including the amount of any liens, mortgages and other debts given to secure the purchase at a rate of 1.28 percent. RCW 82.45.060. A locally-imposed tax is also authorized."

I have heard this adds up to around a 2 percent cost to the seller.

This part is nice though.

"If, however, you purchase land and have a house constructed on it, only the land would be subject to the real-estate excise tax (while the labor and materials for the house would be subject to the retail-sales tax)."

Anyone have an idea how this latter would be assessed as to property tax?

[RodFarlee]

Originally Posted by johnlvs2run

Anyone have an idea how this latter (newly built house) would be assessed as to property tax?

In WA, homes are assessed at their market value. I don't know how all assessors offices work, but ours has a computer system that tracks all sales and automatically reassesses comparable properties. They're also required to audit their assessments (by comparing assessed value to actual sale price of each property sold) and report this to the state. On the state tax website, you can see the assessed value is consistently near 90% of market value (I guess because assessments are typically a year or more out of date).

[WendyK]

The excise tax is applied only when the property is sold and is based on the sales price. In Spokane county, the current rate is 1.78%. In Stevens county, it's 1.53%. This doesn't have anything to do with property taxes. The tax assessed value is typically quite a bit lower than actual market value. A home that's assessed at $500,000 might be worth closer to $800,000 - $900,000 and would have fairly substantial property taxes, depending on which school district it's located in. Most homes in the assessed $200,000 - $300,000 range have annual property taxes of $2400-$3500 in Spokane county. These would be homes that would be priced at around $250,000 - $450,000. There are a lot of fluctuations and irregularities with the Spokane County tax assessor depending on the house, the amount of land, and comparable sales in the area.

[RodFarlee]

Originally Posted by johnlvs2run

If you have 5-35 acres, are the taxes still based on assessed value of the property?

Colorado has an exemption for 35+ acres. Does WA have this too?

Yes. No.

One way to lower the tax on a larger property is to subdivide the house lot off of it, and have the remainder zoned agricultural or forest reserve. I have two neighbors who did just that: divided off 1 or 2 acres around their house, and left the rest in field (zoned ag) or woods (zoned forest). The tax rates on ag and forest zoning are about 5 to 10% of the same land zoned residential.

[johnlvs2run]

Thanks much.

I wonder how they would assess new construction, i.e. when I build it myself.

Perhaps they would take land value + construction costs?

There will likely be no other homes like the one I am planning to build.

I'd not be too entralled with high assessment of a home I've just built, with two of the intentions of building it being to (1) have what I want and (2) save money.

[RodFarlee]

Originally Posted by johnlvs2run

I wonder how they would assess new construction, i.e. when I build it myself.
Perhaps they would take land value + construction costs?

No, assessors have no way of determining costs, and don't care what they are. Their job is to assess market value, and they do that by looking at sales of comparables. It's pretty much square feet, number of rooms, and a general classification of condition, that's about it. They do a quick "drive by" assessment of condition when the certificate of occupancy is issued, and then do another "drive by" every 7 years. They typically never set foot inside a house.

You might be glad to know that passive solar is encouraged in the building code. WA has good insulation and window R-value requirements, requires efficient heating systems (and that depends on the R-values), and encourages (doesn't mandate) south-facing windows, etc. But really non-standard construction techniques might be difficult to get plans approved; you might have to hire an engineer to certify it meets code.

[johnlvs2run]

Rod,

It's good to see passive solar is encouraged.

I'm looking at quite standard - for passive solar - block wall construction.

Your messages are quite helpful. Thanks much.

[johnlvs2run]

Originally Posted by WendyK

The tax assessed value is typically quite a bit lower than actual market value. A home that's assessed at $500,000 might be worth closer to $800,000 - $900,000 and would have fairly substantial property taxes, depending on which school district it's located in.

There's a great explanation of all this on the web page of Spokane County Assessor. For example the property tax is based completely on the city and county budgets, and not on the assessed values of the property.

The assessed values only determine the portion for each home in relation to the others.

Only 1/6 of the county is reappraised each year, then based on that, all property valuation is updated each year. The values are based as is usual, upon the sale of comparable homes.

However, regardless of the market and regardless of assessed values, the amount of property tax is still totally dependent on the budgets. The total amount if the taxes is controlled at the ballot box.

The full explanation is here:

http://www.spokanecounty.org/assessor/