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Assessments mostly flat, Church Hill and Union Hill see increases

The 2015 real estate reassessments are in the mail and online.

A random spot check around the neighborhoods shows:

  • an increase in the range of $5,000-10,000 for much of Church Hill and most of Union Hill (with values flat or declining along Venable Street);
  • Fairmount values held steady, with some decline along along Fairmount Avenue;
  • Peter Paul, Woodville, Chimborazo, and Oakwood assessments are flat compared to last year;
  • Church Hill North, Fulton, Montrose, and Eastview generally held steady, with some minor fluctuation each way;
  • values in Brauers generally held steady, with more fluctuation up and down than any of the other neighborhoods.

10 comments

Dave 07/28/2014 at 8:29 AM

Mine went up 14%…

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Jujubee 07/28/2014 at 9:55 AM

Both mine and my neighbors went up around 11%. Anyone had any luck contesting?

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mjn 07/28/2014 at 1:05 PM

Yes. We did it last year and were successful. It was not easy finding good figures because lots of the sales transactions do not count, eg foreclosures and other transfers. They don’t make it easy to find the areas around yours. There was a spreadsheet on the City website with lists of transfers by area, but often there were none in the area we were looking in and then you had to find comparisons in adjoining areas. If you can’t find the transfer figures, then it is also ok because no data also tells a story in itself, and the city needs to prove they can increase assessment when they have no data on which to base their decisions.

We did several properties and were successful lowering the assessment in all, although I can’t remember by how much. Enough to make it worth it.

You have nothing to lose except a couple of hours and maybe some hair that you will be pulling out due to the inefficiency of our beloved city’s government.

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Jujubee 07/28/2014 at 5:55 PM

If you are using comparable data, does the lot size have to match or can we just do the house on a square foot per valued dollar basis?

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ann 07/28/2014 at 8:15 PM

David Hicks, at a Union Hill meeting some time ago touting the mayor’s Shockoe Bottom plans, happily told a standing-room-only crowd at Union Market that when the project was finished homeowners in the east end would all benefit by an increase in property values…so it may be that you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

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mjn 07/28/2014 at 9:18 PM

It’s on the form the info they need. There really was so little info available that it was hard to do even comparisons, but the land and the house are assessed separately so that plays into it too. I think on one the land value was lowered but the house value stayed the same.

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John M 07/30/2014 at 7:34 AM

Richmond property values up nearly 2 percent
http://www.timesdispatch.com/local/city-of-richmond/richmond-property-values-up-nearly-percent/article_1b92323d-5321-5dbb-b83a-bf8b369ae5a5.html

“Residential assessments increased 2.2 percent overall, driven by large increases in the Fan and Museum districts, Church Hill and Stratford Hills neighborhoods.”

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