As most homeowners know by now, Wake County recently reassessed property tax values.   I want to take a moment to point out a few things in regards to this re-evaluation.

• Property values are reassessed every 8 years in Wake County.   This makes for some “sticker shock” since the average increase in value is 43%.   The county is considering a change to re-evaluating every 4 years, however there is significant cost in performing this herculean task.
• County assessors broke Wake County down to 4200 separate areas for purposes of the re-evaluation.   These areas were used to group similar properties in order to use mass comparisons.
• Although the property values have already  been updated on the Wake County Tax website, these values represent the 2008 property values.  
• Your 2008 tax bill will likely not increase as much as it first appears.   Historically, when the new budgets come out in June, the county has made a change like this “revenue neutral.”   This means that if the county does not need additional money in the budget for 2008, then they will adjust the tax rate in such a way that accounts for the higher property values.
• If you want to know how and when this change in property values will affect your mortgage payment, contact your lender.   If your lender holds money in escrow to pay the property taxes for you, then it may vary as to when and if they need to collect additional money from you.
• In theory, the new property value represents what your home would sell for open the open market.   However, as most real estate professionals can tell you, that is typically not the case.   The new tax value should be closer to your homes fair market value now than it was in 2007, but the gap will continue to change as time goes on.
• There is an appeal process in place to allow homeowners the opportunity to challenge their new assessment.   The county does make mistakes and they provide you with the opportunity to correct them.   There is a small window of time to make your appeal so educate yourself here, if you think there might be an error in your new property value.

If you have questions or concerns about the new re-evaluations please do not hesitate to call me.   You can also visit, www.HouriganTeam.com, and follow the link at the top of the page for additional information.  

Happy Holidays!

Brian P. Hourigan, REALTOR