Property Tax Appeal Blog (78)

DeKalb's Low Property Values: Not My Neighborhood

As reported in the AJC DeKalb County cut property values in some upscale neighborhoods based on distressed sales and the loss of six appraisers to a higher pay scale in Fulton County. Huh? Values in Candler Park were slashed because some appraisers left? Sounds like a managerial problem to me. In other neighborhoods some property values plunged and some dropped by a reasonable amount. Sounds like those six appraisers left a present for the management.

As I have said the value of my little slice of DeKalb County only fell 2% according to the County. In a subdivision not far from my house a friend's value dropped over 20%. She said she has been on DeKalb's website trying to figure out what happened, but values in her subdivision are all over the board. Overall DeKalb's tax digest fell 13%, while Gwinnett's fell 9% and Fulton's fell approximately 8%.

The deadlines to appeal in Gwinnett and Cobb Counties has passed but there is still time to appeal your property tax assessment in Fulton and DeKalb Counties. After the DeKalb County Commissioners said over and over that they would not raise the tax rate they are now considering a 4.5 mill increase. Don't get caught paying more tax on an unchanged or little-changed assessment.

Atlanta Housing on Front Page of Wall Street Journal

Atlanta made a short list of four cities where home values are now below year 2000 values. The others on the list are Detroit, Cleveland and Las Vegas. Atlanta values are 1.6% below the year 2000 index value and down 27.9% since the housing peak. Nationwide housing prices fell 4.2% in the first quarter of 2011 after declining 3.6% in the fourth quarter of 2010. This is not good news for the economy as typically housing and consumer spending lead economic recoveries.

DeKalb County Property Tax Appeals

I received my DeKalb County assessment notice over the Memorial Day weekend. The county's market value estimate on my house has been 4.6% higher than the 2003 sale price for the past several years. My new value is now 1.9% lower than last year but is 2.6% higher than the 2003 sale. This is interesting given that the Case-Shiller home price index is indicating that values in the Atlanta Metro area are now below year 2000 levels.

Fulton County Property Tax Appeals

Everyone knows that the Atlanta area is one of the hardest hit metro areas in terms of the numbers of foreclosures. Things are not looking up (yet). This will come to pass, but there is little good news on the horizon. The National Association of Realtors just released their April pending home sale index which declined 11.6 percent from the March reading and was a whopping 10.6% worse than the consensus estimate. The index is 26.5% lower than April 2010 which included the rush to get the home buyer tax credit.

During the first quarter of this year foreclosure sales accounted for 28% of all sales. The foreclosure properties sold for an average of 27% less than homes that were not in foreclosure. At the current sales pace it will take three years for banks to clear their inventories of houses in foreclosure.

The U.S. House Financial Services Committee is not helping. They are proposing to raise the down-payment required for FHA loans and prohibit the financing of closing costs. Although I find this reasonable, I think it would be more reasonable in about three years.

Commercial Property Tax Appeal News

Commercial mortgage-backed securities continued on the path of rising delinquency rates. Real point LLC indicates a delinquency rates of 8.37% while Trepp LLC shows a delinquency rate of 9.65%. Hotels have the highest delinquency rate at 13.2%. Trepp said that the increase in delinquency came even while there were factors putting downward pressure on the delinquency rate. New CMBS are being added to the pool after they have seasoned for six months. This adds less distressed securities to the pool which should lower the delinquency rate, however this is not happening.

Residential Property Tax Appeal News

Yesterday it was reported that sales of existing US homes declined as did consumer confidence. The overall economy is in a slowdown since the big gross domestic product gains of the fourth quarter. Manufacturing has showed signs of a slowdown and the index of leading economic indicators has also recently dipped. Even Walmart, the place to find falling prices, reported a decrease in earnings the first quarter.

Property Tax Appeal News

Mortgages more than 30 days late or in the foreclosure process totaled 6.4 million units in April. Of the 6.4 million units approximately 4.2 million are not currently in foreclosure. This is the shadow inventory which is keeping a lid on housing prices. In addition there are nearly 2,000,000 housing units which are not delinquent that are more than 50% upside down and are likely to add to the shadow inventory in the future.

Fulton County Property Tax Appeals

Based on the inquiries I have received from taxpayers in the City of Atlanta and north Fulton County the tax assessment values are too high. Do not leave money on the table! Contact us about keeping more of your hard earned dollars! http://www.fair-assessments.com

Porsche – There Is No Substitute

Hapeville got a shot in the arm this week when it was announced that Porsche would be building its new American headquarters at the old Ford assembly plant site in Hapeville Georgia. The new headquarters will include a 150,000 square foot office building and a 1.6 mile test track. The test track will be there to allow potential Porsche owners to test drive their vehicles on site. Yes if you would like to enjoy the lifestyle of the rich and famous you can fly into Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport, take a taxi to the Porsche headquarters, and test drive a Porsche 911.

Fulton County Property Tax Appeals

Fulton County property tax assessment notices are out and you have 45 days to appeal. Given that residential values have continued to trend lower over the past year you should consider the assessment notice sent to you. Is the 2011 value a reduction from the 2010 value? Was the 2010 value a reduction from the 2009 value? If your value hasn't changed much in the last few years you have a good reason to appeal.

Atlanta residential values are down -33% from the peak of the market. This is, of course, an average of the entire metro area. Some areas have been harder hit than others. But if your assessment hasn't been reduced (much) it is probably because the assessment staff didn't think they had enough market data to make a change. One of the reasons that they didn't feel they had enough market data was they considered foreclosures to be non-market transactions.

That has all changed however. The Georgia Legislature has compelled the counties to consider foreclosure sales, short sales, and other forms of distressed sales while they are making their value estimates. In effect, the legislature has made the distressed sales "market value" indicators for property tax purposes. If distressed sales are the majority of sales in your neighborhood it is time for the assessors to consider those sales.

If your value is not changed or is little changed during this recessionary cycle please contact us for help on your property tax appeal. We are reached at www.fair-assessments.com or 404-647-2780.

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