Sticker shock

by Doug Thompson

Floyd County property owners may face sticker shock when their new tax assessments arrive in the mail in November. The independent assessor hired by the county says the new assessments will reflect increases in property values more from 2004-07 than the decline in values in 2008-09.
Tax assessor Harold Wingate told county supervisors Tuesday that the last assessment in 2004 did not reflect the sharp increase in property sales that began that year and most assessments were undervalued by the time they were issued.
“Property sale prices began to rise sharply in 2004 and continued to increase in 2005, 2006 and 2007,” Wingate said. “By law, we have to take those increases into account when determining the new assessments.”
Wingate said the decline in sale prices in 2008 and 2009 will be taken into effect but will, in many cases, will be offset by the sharp increases of the preceding years.
Wingate said land values have not dropped like home values in recent months and Floyd County land prices remain strong.
Letters with the new assessments will be mailed to county property owners in November, Wingate said, with public hearings on the new assessments expected in December.
County officials expect howls of protest from county residents when the new assessments arrive along with many appeals to the equalization board for reconsideration of the assessments.

Wingate said sale prices of single-family homes remain “pretty flat” with smaller drops in values compared to other areas of the state and country.  The increase in foreclosure sales and auctions are not taken into consideration when setting property values because the law requires that value be determined from a sale price from cases where both the seller and buyer are willing.

He said the assessment process is “complicated” and a number of factors are used to determine the value of land and buildings.  Earlier this year, Wingate said the view from a property comes into play, which means a home with a prime view of landmarks like Buffalo Mountain face an increase in assessed value because of that view.

“We have completed most of the field work,” Wingate said. “There may be a few visits we need to mak,e but we’re ready to start running the numbers.”

Tax bills for the second installment of property taxes for 2009, due on Dec. 5, went out recently. Those bills reflect current assessments and tax rates for the county.