2011 Property Assessments are out today

[psicodude]

I too would question how accurately these assessments reflect true market value as mine went up 9%. Just this fall my neighbor ended up renting his place after unsuccessfully trying to sell his house for $75k less than my current assessment.

[Mad Mel]

Yeesh. My old house in Calgary is assessed at $50k less than I sold it for almost three years ago.

Good: I sold at a good time.
Bad: I sold it to my buddy.

[shermanator]

Am I the only poster who's taxes went down?

Alrighttttt who wants to buy my condo

[AFireInside]

Originally Posted by ken0042

I wish I could share your optimism that a gov't body could not have possibly made a mistake. These assessments are based on condition as of 1 week ago; right? Seems odd that they can make 100's of thousands assessments in that time.

I've been watching prices in my neighbourhood; and in the past 18 months I've had cause to have two private assessments done. The private ones over a 14 month period showed a 3% drop; which matched with house sales in the neighbourhood. However my city assessment showed a 7.5% increase.

I'm not concerned as I know about what will happen with the eventual tax bill; but I can see people having an issue with what the city says their home is worth.

The CONDITION of 1 week ago. Sale prices based on July 1st of 2010. So if you have a house thats 75% complete as of 1 week ago, you get an assessment for 75% of the completed value. That completed value is based on sales from a year previous up to July 1st 2010.

At least I think thats the time frame.. May be a 2 year period.

Also a private appraisal won't take ALL sales into account. Most appraisals only take in several comparable properties, not all properties, and certainly not all sales.

I never said a gov't body couldn't make a mistake, companies private and public all make mistakes.

[AFireInside]

Originally Posted by psicodude

I too would question how accurately these assessments reflect true market value as mine went up 9%. Just this fall my neighbor ended up renting his place after unsuccessfully trying to sell his house for $75k less than my current assessment.

I guess the problem is how do you create market value from a property that doesn't sell?

An appraisal can only look at what a similar property sells for...

[travellingman]

Mine went up 8% and even though the assessment isn't an accurate value of the house, it still looked nice to see the number finally be higher than what I owe on the mortgage.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Devil's Rule

http://www.investorwords.com/8338/revenue_neutral.html

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&bi...Q&ved=0CBUQkAE

Revenue Neutral as related to taxes is the biggest lie out there. According to definitions it states that governments will not have an increase in revenue via taxes however it would change in allocation, some taxes go up some go down, but the money brought in is the same.

So if that were true, why are we paying higher property taxes today versus 20, 30, ... years ago. I guess they forgot to mention the affects of inflation in there.

Just saying there has always been some sort of increase in taxes over the long haul, and I don't agree with Revenue Neutral terminology.

The property tax process has two stages. This one is assessment. They assess every property in the city (roughly) determine whether the value of each neighbourhood went up or down. The number they send out to you is then what your taxes would be based on last years tax rate. This process is revenue neutral. The total dollars collected last year and the total dollars of the assessment that just went out are the same.

The tax hike which causes taxes to be raised every year doesn't go into effect until the city and the province set the mill rate in may or june. That is when you get the real "cash grab" / tax hike. All that has happened now if your tax number went up is that the value of your house relative to other houses in the city has gone up.

Save your outrage for june when that number jumps another 4.5%. The annual tax hike, not the re-assessment process is what causes taxes to go up every year.

[Resolute 14]

According to that map, my neighbourhood averaged in the 0 to -10 range, but my condo went up 8%. No biggie.

And for those wondering about last year's assessment, the paperwork the city sent me included last year's assessed value as well.