Its...insane. The tax assessor just lowered the assessed value of my home for the 3rd time to a ridiculously low value. I recently refinanced and the bank's appraiser valued my home more the half a million dollars above the tax assessment value. WTF? I like the low taxes but something really stinks. The banks or the assessor are running some kind of scam out here. How can the numbers be so far apart?
I used to be a realtor in Wash DC and Miami(1994 - 2005) The bank's appraiser uses market comparison valuation method to calculate the value of your home(recent sales of comparable properties), while a tax assessor calculates the home's value by info they have on file in the tax records. This can often lead to big differences in price valuation if the property tax info has erroneous info that the tax assessor is using, or its possible that the bank's appraiser is using properties in his market sales calculation that don't fit the similar characteristics of your home in terms of lot size, home sq footage, # of bedroms/bathrooms, geogr location, etc....thus creating an incorrect valuation assessment of your home. When I was working as a realtor, I ran into quite a few bank appraisers that didnt know how to conduct a proper & fair property appraisal....
Hmm, that fits. The closest comparable property was 29 miiles away in the bank appraisal. You say the taxes are set by the local neighborhood which has crashed in value. Yeah I get it, thanks.