Recently much news has been made about the increasing house values around the country. Apparently the depths of the Great Recession are behind us and real estate is in full recovery mode. According to the Case-Shiller Atlanta home price index, housing values increased 18.44% year-over-year as of August 2013.

This is, of course, an average increase in house values for Atlanta real estate as a whole. I have found wide disparities from this average as I analyze values by neighborhood throughout the metro area. If we dig into the Case-Shiller Atlanta home price index a little further we can see where some of the variation is coming from.

The Fulton County tax assessors have begun work on the 2013 property tax appeals. Some Fulton County property owners have received no change letters from the tax assessors regarding their 2013 appeals while some have been offered reductions in what is called a 30 day letter. After you receive a reduction offer from the tax assessors you have 30 days to either accept the reduced value or appeal to the second level of appeal, which is the Fulton County Board of Equalization.

Recently, some of the 2013 property tax appeals have been scheduled to be heard by the Fulton County Board of Equalization. As recently as last month, the Board of Equalization was continuing to work on 2012 property tax appeal hearings and even a few 2011 property tax appeal hearings were being heard. They are not done with 2012 hearings, however. It appears that the Fulton County Tax Assessors staff is frequently using the board of equalization hearing as a tool to gain access to properties.