All year I try to get people to get an appraisal before August 1st-15th which is when you can talk to the assessor to appeal your taxes. What most people don't realize is that you can submit your appeal before that time frame, no you won't be able to talk to the assessor, but you can talk to their staff, which we all know are the people who actually do the work. As an appraiser I can tell you if you bought a house in the past 5 years there is a very good chance that you could save some major amount of cash. Think about this. In New Orleans for every $10,000 your property has dropped in value you'll save $129.20 on your property tax bill.
Here is the most extreme example:
1727 State Street
Sold 4/24/2006 for $1,195,000
4/30/2009 for $1,030,000.
That's a differance of $165,000 or a decrease in value of 14% over a three year period. The tax savings for the new home owner is $2,131.80 per year.
Now I know that we all don't know a lot of people who own million dollor homes but we do know people that own homes in the $300,000 range.
Here is another example:
1011 Pleasant Street
Sold 8/24/2007 $349,000
2/12/2009 $290,000
That's a differance of $59,000 or a drecease in value of 17% over a year and a half. The tax savings for the new home owner is $762.28 per year.
If your an agent and have sold a home to someone in the past five wouldn't it be nice if you gave that client a call and see how their doing and reassure them that the market will turn around, but in the mean time suggest that they might be able to get there property taxes lowered and save some money in the short term.
Have them give G.N.O. Appraisal Services a call (504) 736-5106. We will preform a free tax assessment evaluation to see if we can save them some money.
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