Local real estate assessments generally unchanged
Don Long / Times-Dispatch
Charles Harrison has led efforts to get the increase in property tax assessments overturned in Dinwiddie County. He is shown at a 78-acre parcel with high voltage lines being used to pasture cattle.
The real estate slump isn't catching up with local property tax assessments, which are essentially unchanged.
The counties of Henrico, Chesterfield and Hanover saw slight decreases in assessment values, while Richmond had a slight increase.
In most of the nine localities in the region that reassessed this year, overall property values -- and real estate tax bills -- barely changed from their previous levels even though the state Realtors association reported a 14 percent drop in average fourth-quarter sales prices in the Richmond area compared with the year before.
An exception was Dinwiddie County, which did its first reassessment in four years and saw an average 47.4 percent jump in value for existing homes. That startled some residents.
"It's very, very unfair," said Charles Harrison, a 40-year county resident who owns Harrison's Supermarket near the Petersburg city line. "There's swamp land they're saying is three to four times what it's worth. . . .
"I have 8 acres of dry land I've had on the market for three years for $275,000, and [the assessment] went up from $209,000 to $397,000 -- nearly double."
Concern over the rise prompted the Dinwiddie Board of Supervisors to schedule another assessment for later this year.
"People here are very upset, very upset," said Frank M. Moore, who moved back to the county two years ago when he inherited a house and 10 acres on the edge of Fort Pickett.
His assessment jumped from $62,000 to $136,000. "I painted the outside of my dwelling. That's everything I did," Moore said.
Over the past few years, the Richmond region generally has seen double-digit growth in assessed property values. Dinwiddie's tax rolls did not reflect that because the county had not done a reassessment since 2005.
Hopewell, which assesses its real estate tax base every two years, saw a 19.8 percent increase this year. Goochland County's total tax base also increased, but the county assessor could not provide a breakdown of how much existing residential real estate values changed, despite repeated requests.
"The market is down, according to [Realtors data]. But according to the assessor, it is holding its own," said Bill Phillips, a 14-year resident of the Maidens area in Goochland.
He said lots in his subdivision saw a $25,000 increase in land value, which boosted his total assessment by 7 percent.
When Dinwiddie, Hopewell and Goochland are excluded, assessed property values declined 1 percent across the other six localities in the Richmond region that reassessed this year.
The region's strong growth in assessed values before this year has meant rising property-tax bills, even though local elected officials regularly cut the rate at which they calculate taxes.
Even with the softer market, new construction completed last year will boost the total tax base of several localities -- Richmond, for instance will see its total tax base increase 5 percent.
This year, while assessed values on existing homes are generally down, local officials say they are not inclined to increase tax rates. By comparison, Fairfax County proposed raising its rate by 13 percent to $1.04 per $100 of assessed value.
"We're going to make it work with what we've got," Henrico County Manager Virgil R. Hazelett said. "When I look at what they're talking about with tax rates in Northern Virginia, that's just not something you can do to people."
Contact David Ress at (804) 649-6051 or
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Reader Reactions
“[Have you tried to talk to your assessor? I find them to be the most arrogant, obnoxious, under-educated bureaucrats you’ll ever meet; not surprisingly, most of them are former real estate agents ... those non-value-added people that have fed off other people’s money for forty years.]
The technique used in Chesterfield has been to use “stale” sales ... from two and three years ago. “
Boy, you got that right. Two years ago, as prices were beginning to collapse, a much larger house on my block sold for $100K less than mine. I mentioned this to my assessor last year and she said it was too new to be considered.
This year? You guessed it, she said it’s too old to be considered. Power corrupts.
You’re exactly right, blackbeered. The cheap, plastic tract housing that developers have clobbered Chesterfield County with are the functional equivalent of a Ponzi scheme.
It’s the endless rezoning that prepared the “perfect storm” of increased traffic congestion, overcrowded schools, oversubscribed utilities, and higher taxes now in store for Chesterfield.
Ultimately, taxes will have to skyrocket to save the county from the results of poor planning. Meanwhile, what is achieved? I mean, in what way do county residents and taxpayers benefit from tens of thousands of cheap new homes in their midst? The answer: they don’t.
If nothing else, the increased supply drives down the values of existing homes. But there is much else. Schools, as we’ve learned lately, tend to be costly. Roads don’t build themselves. The supply of fresh water is not endless. Already, people are clamoring for increased spending on these and other items, as well as for increasing the County’s debt load which will have two pernicious effects: one, increasing the cost of borrowing when the County loses its good credit rating and two, increasing taxes down the road as the debt needs to be paid off in addition to “normal” spending.
Why should the taxpayers of this county subsidize the developers?
If these developers actually had the health and well-being of our County in mind, they’d be hard at work revitalizing close-in neighborhoods where we’ve already made the investment in infrastructure, and which are more accessible to a wide variety of people, affording vastly better use of resources, shorter commutes, fuel savings, etc etc. Instead, they’ll happily wreck what’s left of this county with their plastic sprawl, slap the taxpayers with the bills, and then move on to greener pastures.
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PS: incidentally, just because Warren Buffett made a colossal error does not mean that everyone else did, or should. I started shorting financials in the summer of 2007 when the writing was on the wall. It’s not rocket science. All you have to do is pay attention.
blackbeered… apparently, you were the only one who saw the economy coming to a screeching halt because even Warren Buffett didn’t see it coming.
And where did I say that taxpayers lose money on every home, or that we can make it up in volume? Quote me on that please because I said nothing of the sort. What I said is that new homes contribute the most to the county’s property tax base and when you don’t have new homes being built you don’t have an increasing property tax base, which causes deficits. That’s an unquestioned (and this year, well-proven) FACT.
The study you quote actually is off. The $15,000 proffer (now $18,080) generates about 2% of the total amount of the cost of growth per home, yet it drives the cost of new homes so high that the family that earns the median household income only earns 25% of the total cost of the median-priced new home. And in all this “rampant growth” Chesterfield has supposedly had, the average rate of growth since 1990 in the county has been 2.6%. That’s because home prices have climbed so high that the average Richmonder can’t afford to buy a home in Chesterfield anymore.
What you may not know is that the county only counts taxes collected on a residence for a 10-year period. Funny, but the other 50 years that a home generates taxes for the county aren’t counted when it comes to how homes pay for growth.
I’m afraid I have no idea where you’re coming up with deferred liabilities. There is a real problem in the county with government doing far more than it should and being unwilling to cut the unnecessary services. That’s going to require significant tax increases at some point. Maybe the additional taxes our children will have to pay is what you’re talking about?!?
Oh, and so you know, I’m not a developer. Just a well-educated resident who understands economics and can read and analyze statistics.
Are we talking about THE Marleen Durfee the self appointed “First Lady of Smart Growth” of Chesterfield County.
Marleen Durfee who went from advocating Responsible Growth with the
RGAC-Responsible Growth Alliance of Chesterfield.
To:
The First Lady of Smart Growth
To:
The NO Growth Deferral Queen of Foxcroft on the Lake?
She who led the charge to densify the region.
“Come Grow With Us” and all that.
We are all aware that times have changed drastically in the past two years but the dithering Ms. Dufree’s attempts stifle all growth in her constituents’ kingdom by the lake could spell economic stagnation for the area as a whole.
James,
As late as six months ago, County Administrator Stegmaier was quoted in a newspaper article as saying “no one saw this [the screeching halt to the economy] coming”. This was 18 months INTO the recession/depression. So take your pick: fire him because he’s [a] stupid or incompetent.
As for your suggestion that, while taxpayers lose on every new house built, “we can make it up on volume” ... you wouldn’t be a developer, would you?
One study showed that a $15,000/house proffer comprised less than 15% of the cost borne by Chesterfield County over a 15-yr period. [The 15 Cube Condition.] Like a Ponzi scheme, the County needed to fuel rampant growth to keep this deferred liability from rising to the surface. The party’s over.
And speaking of deferred liabilities ... what about the whopper that’s going to begin hitting Chesterfield County taxpayers in 6-8 years as the first of the “baby boomers” of Chesterfield County’s hiring boom begins retiring? Some estimates suggest a place it at $800/yr-household!
My last post should have been directed to blackbeered, not HJackson. My apologies.
HJackson… you can’t fire the county administrator because you don’t like his predecessor or because a previous Board hired him. You have to have a tangible reason.
Maybe what you’re not understanding here is the law doesn’t allow the supervisors to reject a development project because they don’t want it. If a developer files for a rezoning and follows all the laws, the supervisors by law cannot deny the rezoning. When they try to reject it for no reason as they did to Doug Sowers, it will cost the county even more money in legal fees when the developer sues.
You apparently thought the supervisors would come in and stop all development. They didn’t have to; the market stopped it and you see the results—a $42 million deficit for this year and what will probably be close to a $70 million deficit next year. Now they have figured out that stopping growth is not an option. Even the Queen of No Growth Marleen Durfee appears to be figuring out that you can’t stop development and expect to provide county residents with the services they want.
To Anon ...
Bingo! You hit the nail on the head.
To HJackson ...
We did too throw the bums out ... after reckless growth and runaway spending ... and no shame or sense of responsibility for what has happened [the worst is yet to come in Chesterfield].
Yes, we did expect more from their replacements but haven’t seen it yet. We were hoping they would undo Lane Ramsey’s last minute “annoitment” of his successor. The fact that they would continue with this muddlehead means they’re at the front of the line at the bus stop.
Chesterfield voters did not throw the prior supervisors under the bus. They like those who voted for Obama who promised change are now finding just “More of the same” only at a higher level of corruption and greed that is robbing from the haves and redistributing to those who don’t work, won’t work and fully expect others to take care of them. Before this is over you will be lucky to have enough money left to buy a cup of coffee.
Just like many buy-and-flip homeowners, property assessment laws assume home prices will never go down. When they do, there is no efficient mechanism to correctly value slow moving properties. If you mark-to-market, homes in some neighborhoods (especially in Sourthern California and Arizona) would be worth zero.
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