13 Responses to “real estate assessments out now”

1. posted by john at March 1, 2006 7:57 pm :
   

   We only saw a 3% increase this year, while many houses in our area of Fairmount had 100%+ jumps last year.

2. posted by ben at March 1, 2006 8:44 pm :
   

   while my house only increased slightly last year, this year i am faced with a 100% increase!

3. posted by john at March 1, 2006 8:45 pm :
   

   roughly where is your house located!?!?

4. posted by BGW at March 1, 2006 11:02 pm :
   

   I know at least 2 people in Westover Hills who got nailed with 60-66% increases.

5. posted by James at March 1, 2006 11:20 pm :
   

   I live on clay. My assesment is a s follows:

   2004- 60,000

   2005-110,000

   2006-238,000

   I think thats overdoing it.

6. posted by Amy at March 2, 2006 10:18 am :
   

   James, sounds like it’s time to sell and buy 2 other houses to renovate!

7. posted by john at March 2, 2006 9:49 pm :
   

   A neat link via local houseblog Moody Blues is zillow. You can get a slightly-outdated and slightly-innacurate but still very interesting overview of the valuation of given address and the surrounding area.

8. posted by Daniel at March 3, 2006 10:03 pm :
   

   Do these assessments have any basis in reality? Or do they just randomly select numbers? I’m looking at houses on our block and two un-renovated houses both jumped over $150,000 in value. They both were assessed at more than $40,000 more than our renovated house. Is this the city trying to drive out residents? Because I think it’s nuts!

9. posted by john at March 4, 2006 7:26 am :
   

   I’ve heard in a few places that the city does the assessments by averages — size, sellig points in the area, condition, etc, and might not know if a specific house has been renovated. Unless you are going for a loan, a lower assessment benefits you as it keeps your taxes down.

   The assessments are now online at the city GIS page if you want 100% accurate info about an address.

10. posted by Daniel at March 4, 2006 8:55 am :
    

    Yeah, my concern wasn’t about our lower assessment, I’m fine with that. My concern is for my neighbours, who to me look like they are being run out. Check out the assessments on the 600 block of 31st and then drive down the block and you will be blown away.

11. posted by Ruth at March 4, 2006 3:32 pm :
    

    Our assessment keeps going up every year even though my house hasn’t had any work done to it since the 1980’s. I want to fight the assessment this year. Does anyone have experience doing this?

12. posted by john at March 5, 2006 7:55 am :
    

    from the RTD:

    Pausing in the sloping side yard of the new duplex on Jessamine Street in the East End, Richmond supervising assessor Richard C. Woodson could spot a dozen renovated homes.If he had turned around, he would have noticed the rear of three more homes still under construction on 24th Street.That’s a big reason why the lot, vacant since the 1970s, saw its assessed value — the amount on which its owner pays taxes to the city — rise 69 percent this year, even before counting the eventual value of the duplex.”Ten years ago, they couldn’t give this land away,” said Woodson, jotting a note on the floor plan he had sketched on his field notes.[...]In Virginia, assessors try to calculate 100 percent of a property’s fair market value.Like homebuyers, they look at recent sales prices in a neighborhood and at the basics of a building — how many square feet, how many bedrooms and bathrooms. A building’s style — two-story colonials tend to be fetching higher prices and larger assessments than tri-levels — and any improvements matter, too.[...]Big jumps in assessments can be a hardship in older neighborhoods, such as Carver and Jackson Ward, which saw increases of up to 40 percent last year.

13. posted by john at March 5, 2006 8:00 am :
    

    Last year, before the assessments went out, the city said that some areas might see increases of “up to 40%”. All around us, houses were suddenly assessed at 3x or more the previous years assessment (see the link in the main post for examples). Despite hitting this point here more than once, getting quotes in the Richmond Voice, and getting a letter published in the RTD, local ‘real’ media still keep repeating the “up to 40%” fact.

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