[baily23]

Me and my wife just bought our first home in Las Vegas. It appraised at $165k and we bought it for a little bit less .

My question, our annual property tax is almost $2600. I think this is off an old assessment from the original home price of over $320k in 2007. How do I get the county to reassess the tax amount since the house value has dropped 50%????

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by baily23

Me and my wife just bought our first home in Las Vegas. It appraised at $165k and we bought it for a little bit less .

My question, our annual property tax is almost $2600. I think this is off an old assessment from the original home price of over $320k in 2007. How do I get the county to reassess the tax amount since the house value has dropped 50%????

Wait until December...Then you get your assessment for next year. If the tax is much over 1600 then you appeal. Do that in early January.

[sheriwx]

We're going through this as well. The taxes seem pretty high for what we are purchasing our home for. It's a shame we have to wait until January to do anything about it.

How do we find out what we should be paying in taxes, based on appraisal price or purchase price or whatever it's based on?

*In our case, it's a $155,000 house, with taxes of $2100..so maybe it is accurate, I don't know.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by sheriwx

We're going through this as well. The taxes seem pretty high for what we are purchasing our home for. It's a shame we have to wait until January to do anything about it.

How do we find out what we should be paying in taxes, based on appraisal price or purchase price or whatever it's based on?

*In our case, it's a $155,000 house, with taxes of $2100..so maybe it is accurate, I don't know.

You should end up around $1450-1500 or so in most of the county...maybe $1600 in NLV. Check the County assessors site for your property.

Search By Location Address

The tax value tells you the value against which you are asssessed.

YOu are stuck for the coming year. Next chance to change it will be in December.

[WestieJeff]

Your assessed value (and thus taxes) may be going down shortly. The county fiscal year starts in July so new property tax assessments take effect in July.

I would look up your house from the assessors section of the clark county website and see what the assessed value is for fiscal year 10-11, it may already be dropping. My house's assessed value dropped quite a bit from last fiscal year to the new fiscal year.

To answer your question, the taxable value of your home should be around market price (not necessarily what you paid, if you paid under comparables). The assessed value (which taxes are calculated off) is 35% of taxable value. You multiply the assessed value times your property tax rate. Tax rate varies by location, but Henderson and Las Vegas are generally around 2.95% and North Las Vegas is around 3.3%.

So if your house is worth 165k (taxable value) then the assessed value is around 58k (35%). If your in Las Vegas or Henderson then x 2.95% (est) = ~$1700.

If you have to appeal your assessments (in Dec/Jan) then you will need to supply several comparable sales in your area to prove that your house is worth whatever you're claiming it's worth. There is also a short time period where they accept appeals, so make sure you stay on top of it.

[sheriwx]

Okay, so I checked the site. It looks like they have an assessed value for the year 2010-11 that accurately shows a current assessment. (Assessed value 59k)

The MLS listing, though, shows the taxes at $2100, which is accurate to the previous year's assessment (2009-10) of about 72k.

So. When I set up my escrow, will I be paying the $2100 that the listing says, or will I be paying the rate based on the most current assessment, which would put it at $1748?

[WestieJeff]

Most likely you will pay at the higher amount since that's what your escrow account was established at. Usually once a year you will have an escrow analysis that will adjust your escrow payment based on the new (lower in this case) tax amount. You can call your loan servicer and ask when the analysis is done, but since your loan just got established it probably wont be for 6-12 months.

Also, just so you're aware the fiscal year 2010-2011 tax rates have not been established yet and most likely will be slightly higher than last year since the locales are seeing huge drops in assessed value and thus incoming property tax revenue, they are doing what they can to keep the revenue up. There are limits on how much they can raise it tho, so the change should be small.

[sheriwx]

Originally Posted by WestieJeff

Most likely you will pay at the higher amount since that's what your escrow account was established at. Usually once a year you will have an escrow analysis that will adjust your escrow payment based on the new (lower in this case) tax amount. You can call your loan servicer and ask when the analysis is done, but since your loan just got established it probably wont be for 6-12 months.

Also, just so you're aware the fiscal year 2010-2011 tax rates have not been established yet and most likely will be slightly higher than last year since the locales are seeing huge drops in assessed value and thus incoming property tax revenue, they are doing what they can to keep the revenue up. There are limits on how much they can raise it tho, so the change should be small.

The loan hasn't been established quite yet. We just went under contract yesterday. But I'll count on paying the higher amount anyway, if that's how it's done.

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by sheriwx

The loan hasn't been established quite yet. We just went under contract yesterday. But I'll count on paying the higher amount anyway, if that's how it's done.

You should be alright...the new tax will appear July 1.

[MadManofBethesda]

Originally Posted by olecapt

You should be alright...the new tax will appear July 1.

A somewhat related question: When can I expect to receive my tax bill and when will it be due? (My taxes through June 30th were handled as part of the closing.)