Property Taxes, Assessments and Sales Ratio's

By Jon Black


By investigating into the matter of the tax assessment process, you will be able to discern if your property taxes are correct. There is no other way. This also makes the tax assessors more accountable and the whole system will become fairer for everyone. Homeowners are challenging their property tax assessment. After all, a property tax assessment is nothing more than an viewpoint of value that should be double checked by you.

Contrary to popular belief, tax assessors rarely make an assessment on a house. That job is hired out on a bid basis to professional area blanket appraiser concerns who determine market value for the homes in a given neighborhood and come up with a valuation.

What happens is that the appraising concern needs to make a return on their per home bid price and have to allocate a portion amount of their time per appraisal. They blanket neighborhoods and make their conclusion of value rather quickly because of money and time restraints. Glitches frequently occur. Consumer Reports, the National Taxpayers Organization and other respected authoritiesgives the error rate between 40% to 60%

It would be nice if valuation where presented in an obvious format. It is not. To compound the problem, the market value of a house is divide by a sales ratio and that number is given as the assessment. Understanding of property assessments depends on the sales ratio. Different areas use different names. This can be called, dependent on the jurisdiction, assessment level, director's ratio, the average ratio, the common level of 100% of true value, RAR (residential assessment ratio) or the equalization rate (which may not always be equivalent to the sales ratio).

NOTE THIS FORMULA: The market appraisal of a property = the "assessed value" that the county tax assessor came up with DIVIDED by the sales ratio. That looks like smoke and mirrors to a lot of individuals.

Many people get suckered in by this price method and don't know what the firm score is. The reality of what the value that the assessor places on their home does not register correctly.

For instance, if the sales ratio for an area is pegged at 50%, a $500,000 dollar home should be assessed at $250,000. So, if the homeowner sees that their home is assessed at $400,000 he/she might be thinking they are getting a super deal, but in reality they are getting duped.




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