Question for BevBo: Can you tell me if the decrease in my county property tax evaluation reflects a decrease in the actual market value of my property?
Jackie - June 1, 2008 at 4:53 pm
WOW! Great question Jackie...Yes, I can tell you, and the answer is NO, not necessarily-but there are a few layers to this answer.
Layer 1: your property taxes are essentially a math problem:
Levy x Value = Tax
So if either the Levy (all of the "little" taxing districts like school bussing, mosquito abatement, etc., and the charges that come with those services are levies) or the "Value" (in this case, the "assessed value" -which is different than the actual market value-of your land + improvement(s)) goes down, the product of the equation, or the tax, goes down.
You can compare all years of the assessor's point of view of your assessed value by going to: http://www.adaweb.net/departments/assessor/default.asp and clicking on "property search" to look up your property. Generally, you will see an increase here, and I strongly suspect that the decrease you may have seen was caused by the levy decreasing. Please visit http://www.adaweb.net/Departments/Assessor/ResidentialCommercialAppraisalFAQs.asp to find out how real property is assessed by the county, as well as many other helpful tidbits on property taxes.
Layer 2: "Actual Market Value," you may have noticed, is not what the assessor's tax equation is based on. You've heard the expression, "It's worth whatever someone will pay for it." Well, I subscribe to this addage very heavily. Market value is what the market will yield; what someone else will pay for the property, and the assessor does not figure that out. Who does? A qualified appraiser and/or real estate broker can give you excellent opinions of price, and the real estate broker should be able to supply this information for free
BEV Boeck, Broker Associate, SW Idaho Real Estate
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