Real estate assessment

[Anonymous]

I appealed my assessment, and the assessor did an inside inspection. I was fascinating to learn that appliances and cabinetry apparently don’t factor into your assessment?! All of the things that I was told aren’t factored into my assessment are at least 20% of what I paid for the house.

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. My assessment is $100k more than I paid a year ago.

[Anonymous]

This is a known fact OP. Of course your expensive appliances aren't part of the assessment! Your assessment is based on the value of the land, and the structure including sqft, number of bedrooms/bathrooms, if you added a deck. It's not based on how pretty it is. That only comes in when you're trying to determine the market/street value.

[Anonymous]

I’m confused - you appealed bc you thought it was too high or too low?

[Anonymous]

Assessments take the average sales prices of comparable sold properties to value yours (not to be confused with an appraisal). The county assessor looks at your square footage and lot size and their computers do the rest. My appraisal on a refi one year came in $30k lower than the county had assessed my property and I still couldn’t win the fight with the county to lower my assessment. But normally an appraisal is higher than an assessment. Assessors don’t care about fit or finish and I’m shocked they inspected inside (maybe looking for finished versus unfinished spaces)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Assessments take the average sales prices of comparable sold properties to value yours (not to be confused with an appraisal). The county assessor looks at your square footage and lot size and their computers do the rest. My appraisal on a refi one year came in $30k lower than the county had assessed my property and I still couldn’t win the fight with the county to lower my assessment. But normally an appraisal is higher than an assessment. Assessors don’t care about fit or finish and I’m shocked they inspected inside (maybe looking for finished versus unfinished spaces)?

This is OP. The. Then they should be clear that it’s not tethered to fair market value. The quality of the finishes contribute to the market value of the home, don’t they? I checked a box on a form that my home value was not in line with fair market value of the house. My house is one of 500 little row houses built at exactly the same time; many are finished much nicer than mine, but I could never sell mine for what those are going for, and mine is valued SIGNIFICANTLY higher (hundreds of dollars in property taxes per year). It seems arbitrary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assessments take the average sales prices of comparable sold properties to value yours (not to be confused with an appraisal). The county assessor looks at your square footage and lot size and their computers do the rest. My appraisal on a refi one year came in $30k lower than the county had assessed my property and I still couldn’t win the fight with the county to lower my assessment. But normally an appraisal is higher than an assessment. Assessors don’t care about fit or finish and I’m shocked they inspected inside (maybe looking for finished versus unfinished spaces)?

This is OP. The. Then they should be clear that it’s not tethered to fair market value. The quality of the finishes contribute to the market value of the home, don’t they? I checked a box on a form that my home value was not in line with fair market value of the house. My house is one of 500 little row houses built at exactly the same time; many are finished much nicer than mine, but I could never sell mine for what those are going for, and mine is valued SIGNIFICANTLY higher (hundreds of dollars in property taxes per year). It seems arbitrary.

In general, assessments also factor in last sales price, in part because recent improvements like decks, additional bathrooms, finishing a basement, etc, have been updated. So if those others haven’t been sold recently, they could be less than yours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assessments take the average sales prices of comparable sold properties to value yours (not to be confused with an appraisal). The county assessor looks at your square footage and lot size and their computers do the rest. My appraisal on a refi one year came in $30k lower than the county had assessed my property and I still couldn’t win the fight with the county to lower my assessment. But normally an appraisal is higher than an assessment. Assessors don’t care about fit or finish and I’m shocked they inspected inside (maybe looking for finished versus unfinished spaces)?

This is OP. The. Then they should be clear that it’s not tethered to fair market value. The quality of the finishes contribute to the market value of the home, don’t they? I checked a box on a form that my home value was not in line with fair market value of the house. My house is one of 500 little row houses built at exactly the same time; many are finished much nicer than mine, but I could never sell mine for what those are going for, and mine is valued SIGNIFICANTLY higher (hundreds of dollars in property taxes per year). It seems arbitrary.

They don’t factor in fit and finish because they don’t have to ability to look at every single comparable house that sold and compare them individually to what your house has in terms of cosmetic updates. People need to permit bathrooms, decks, etc so those will be factored in. But they have no way to know whether your next door neighbors identical house that sold for $1 million had an updated kitchen or bathroom. So your house gets lumped in with the similar sized homes in your area.

[Anonymous]

Wait, you want the assessment higher? I’m confused.

My husband gets so irritated because our assessment is higher than several neighbors without exact model and more updates. But because all of the assessments are technically “below market value” they won’t adjust ours down to match theirs.

[Anonymous]

^ with our exact model; not without.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wait, you want the assessment higher? I’m confused.

My husband gets so irritated because our assessment is higher than several neighbors without exact model and more updates. But because all of the assessments are technically “below market value” they won’t adjust ours down to match theirs.

No. My assessment for 2022 is about $100k more than I paid for my house in September 2021. My appraisal from September 2021 was $70k less than my assessment.

Exact same house, exact same number of bathrooms. I think my assessment is well above market value for my house.

[Anonymous]

Usually your house appraised for exactly what you are buying it for, so I’m not sure that’s a true barometer. It sounds like people are selling their homes in your neighborhood for more than you bought for, so your assessment will go up. Also, assessments tend to jump once a house changes hands because the county now has a data point on market value. The RE market has been crazy for the past few years, so it doesn’t sound unbelievable that your assessment went up, sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait, you want the assessment higher? I’m confused.

My husband gets so irritated because our assessment is higher than several neighbors without exact model and more updates. But because all of the assessments are technically “below market value” they won’t adjust ours down to match theirs.

No. My assessment for 2022 is about $100k more than I paid for my house in September 2021. My appraisal from September 2021 was $70k less than my assessment.

Exact same house, exact same number of bathrooms. I think my assessment is well above market value for my house.

and what does that have to do with your cabinets?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait, you want the assessment higher? I’m confused.

My husband gets so irritated because our assessment is higher than several neighbors without exact model and more updates. But because all of the assessments are technically “below market value” they won’t adjust ours down to match theirs.

No. My assessment for 2022 is about $100k more than I paid for my house in September 2021. My appraisal from September 2021 was $70k less than my assessment.

Exact same house, exact same number of bathrooms. I think my assessment is well above market value for my house.

and what does that have to do with your cabinets?

Finishes—like cabinets or high quality appliances—are part of what make people want to pay more for homes, increasing the fair market value of a property. That’s what has to do with cabinets.