{"id":11574,"date":"2010-07-09T07:15:46","date_gmt":"2010-07-09T14:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/?p=11574"},"modified":"2010-07-10T21:10:17","modified_gmt":"2010-07-11T04:10:17","slug":"why-are-property-tax-assessments-often-so-inaccurate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seattlebubble.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/09\/why-are-property-tax-assessments-often-so-inaccurate\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are property tax assessments often so inaccurate?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a follow-up on last week’s post about how falling home values can still lead to an increasing property tax bill<\/a>, I thought I would go a little more detail on how the county assessor comes up with that magical home value number on which they base your tax bill.<\/p>\n

Here’s how the King County Assessor’s website<\/a> explains the process:<\/p>\n

Residential property is assessed each year at its full market value, which is defined as the amount a buyer, willing but not obligated to buy, would pay to a seller willing but not obligated to sell. For residential parcels, fair market value is determined by analyzing recent sales of comparable properties in the same area.
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\nIn addition to statistical analysis to determine value, all properties are physically inspected once in every six year cycle.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, the county is using an “automated valuation model,” the same basic concept that Zillow<\/a> uses for their notoriously spotty “Zestimates”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When your “Zestimate” is off by 20%, it’s not really a big deal. When your property tax assessment comes in 20% higher than the actual market value of your home, that’s a different story. According to locally-based property tax appeal specialists at ValueAppeal<\/a>, the problem of over-assessment affects as many as one in four homes in any given year.<\/p>\n

In King County, the assessor’s office mails out property tax notices to 92 different neighborhoods staggered over a period of a couple of months, beginning in June. So far, 24 neighborhoods have received their 2010 tax assessments (comprising roughly 22% of homes in the county). Using data on 2010 assessments in King County provided by ValueAppeal<\/a>, I have generated a “heat map” of sorts for these neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

Each dot on the map is roughly centered over a neighborhood defined by the county assessor. Float your mouse over the dot to see the name of the neighborhoods covered by that dot, and to view the detailed stats. Head over to the King County Assessor’s website<\/a> for detailed pdfs that include maps of each area.<\/p>\n

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