Market question

[rrlund]

Noted and thank you for the information. Just to be clear, they did modify it back in'17 and gave back 50K. But at this point it's almost back to where they started.

Real estate inflation outpaces general inflation.

 

[Mcrafty1]

Real estate values usually are determined by what people are currently paying for real estate on average, which conflates real estate cost in a given area. It is the main reason older citizens, when they start living on a fixed income eventually have to sell their homes and move into government subsidized housing ...or with their kids because they can no longer pay the taxes on the homes they worked a lifetime to pay off thinking they could live in them comfortably after they retire.

 

[TheBartman47]

When I protested mine, they had all kinds of wrong info on my property... building measurements (Sq. Ft.), building use (had my chicken coop labeled as a storage building). They do drone flyovers over everyone's property and then guestimate from the pictures what you got. It's a hassle to do it yourself, and won't get as good results compared to letting a professional that specializes in it to represent you at the appraisal hearing. They wouldn't budge for me, but when I used Ownwell, they got my property reduced 20k.

 

[rrlund]

When I protested mine, they had all kinds of wrong info on my property... building measurements (Sq. Ft.), building use (had my chicken coop labeled as a storage building). They do drone flyovers over everyone's property and then guestimate from the pictures what you got. It's a hassle to do it yourself, and won't get as good results compared to letting a professional that specializes in it to represent you at the appraisal hearing. They wouldn't budge for me, but when I used Ownwell, they got my property reduced 20k.

They don't need drones. They have satellite technology that the rest of us don't have access to. The assessor showed me what she could do. There was a cabin back in the woods behind a closed gate. She was able to zoom on on it and tilt down to about 45 degrees. Anybody who thinks they can hide behind a closed gate doesn't have a clue.

On another note, with the real estate inflation, we have two values here in Michigan. There's State Equalized Value and there's Taxable Value. State Equalized Value is a good estimate of what the property is worth, based on the information in the computer, factored every year by a formula based on actual sales in the annual sales study. Every "good" sale goes in to the study and if they were, say 10% higher than the SEV on those parcels, then there's a 10% increase in your SEV. That's broken down by classification of course. If residential sales figures are 10% higher, residential SEV increases 10%. If the same study shows ag sales steady, there'll be no change to ag values. In commercial sales figures were down 5% in value, commercial SEV would drop 5%. By good sale, they mean a sale that was handled by a realtor, not sold at auction and not between relatives.

Taxable Value can only go up (or down as was the case after the 08 crash) by the rate of inflation as determined by the annual Consumer Price Index. Taxable Value can't be higher than SEV. Your Taxable Value is capped at what the SEV was the year that you bought the parcel. In essence, the longer you own a parcel, the better rate you get on your taxes. It's been that way since 1994. I've only bought one parcel since then, so much of mine is locked at what the SEV was in 1994. I have land with an SEV of $4200 an acre, but since the value was locked at $600 an acre in 94, it's still capped down there but just factored by CPI inflation, not real estate inflation. Some people accuse me of doing something shady, having property taxes that low, but there's nothing I can do. I didn't write the law. I'm not the only one who's owned their land or home that long. I just look at it as incentive to stay put.

 

[showcrop]

When I protested mine, they had all kinds of wrong info on my property... building measurements (Sq. Ft.), building use (had my chicken coop labeled as a storage building). They do drone flyovers over everyone's property and then guestimate from the pictures what you got. It's a hassle to do it yourself, and won't get as good results compared to letting a professional that specializes in it to represent you at the appraisal hearing. They wouldn't budge for me, but when I used Ownwell, they got my property reduced 20k.

Soon after we bought our place, I was looking at the deed and I saw somethings that didn't look right. I went up to the town offices and was given a form to fill out asking for a correction. At that time the Select board were the assessors, and at their next meeting they approved my request for a reduction in the size of my lot. The previous owners had sold 20% of the acreage off, but it never got changed in the town records so they just kept paying for all of it for the next fifteen years.