Well, I received my property assessment in the mail within the last week. Based on a random inquiry with other homeowners I now realize I am not alone with a decline in the assessed value of my home. From a small sampling I have seen changes ranging from a few thousand dollars up to tens of thousands. In fact, the majority have been in the tens of thousands.
The upside is the amount of taxes they will have owing will diminish. However, the downside for those who are trying to sell their home in this market may have a tougher time getting their asking price.
Trust and believe the buyers are doing their research and going online to view the newer assessments. Yes, the information is available online already. They are using it as a useful tool when making offers.
Personally, I was hoping the new assessments would not be publicly published until July. Who am I? Without a doubt a person who did not have a hand in the decision to make the information public prior to the effective date. As a web developer I would have designed my application so the new information would not be available to everyone with a browser until 12:01 a.m. on the date it becomes effective. I’m sure some homeowners probably feel violated. They’ve had a hard enough struggle trying to get their homes sold in this market.
The buyers should be truly thankful. They are the ones who stand to gain the most by the lower assessments being published publicly ahead of time. Normally when the divide between common sense and book sense closes its gap it makes no sense at all. (That was original I hope you like that (smile)!).
In all fairness if the assessments were increasing I still would not want to see them published until they were actually effective. However, of course the seller would have the upper hand in this case. They would probably up the price because they would have the assessment to support it.
Unfortunately for quite a few I verbally surveyed they now owe more on the home than what it is assessed at. I sure hope this is not indicative of the whole population.
Here I was all optimistic the market would rebound and assessments would remain stable. How many people will decide to walk if they receive some really depressing news in regards to a large decline in their assessed value? I encourage everyone to check out the resources available to them via their lender and non-profits before giving up completely. Also, consider letting a real estate professional negotiate a short sell for your home prior to just walking away. Explore all your options to see which one works best for your situation.
Check out the Making Home Affordable website at MakingHomeAffordable.gov.
If you just want to vent call me. You can reach me direct at (757) 309-2763. If I'm hearing someone else's story and not available please feel free to leave me a message and I'll call you back.
If I were the lender I would be offering a stay and play option to the homeowners. My script would go something like: “Stay in your home, negotiate with us direct, let’s make a deal and we’ll give you a vacation packet to help relieve your stress on this very disappointing downturn. Don’t walk away it may end up being a lose-lose situation for everyone. We’re working aggressively to see how we can improve this situation and we have received the projected assessment as well because you escrow your taxes with us, the city has kindly furnished us a copy. We are not taking a wait and see approach we are being pro-active in trying to bring some normalcy to this situation. We as you hope your focus is to stay in your home and we will try and offer a work-around even it only needs to be temporary for a few years until the market rebounds.”
