Question for Real Estate/Homeowner people

Giving that the housing economy is in the slump and prices have fallen quite a bit, does the city reassess your property values at all? I took a glance at my home on zillow.com and it listed 2010 tax assessment MUCH higher than what the property was paid for or even what the property is worth currently (much less). Nearly an 80k difference in suggested value/assessed value

1/18/2011 11:52:46 AM

Quote :

"Wake County assessed real estate values reflect the market value as of January 1, 2008. Any inflation, deflation or other economic changes occurring after this date do not affect the county's assessed value of the property and cannot be lawfully considered when reviewing the value for adjustment. The January 1, 2008 assessed values remain in effect until the next county-wide revaluation, which is currently performed every eight years. "

1/18/2011 12:09:37 PM

zillow values can be pretty far off...so i wouldn't put too much stock in that.

the county reassesses every 8 years and they just did it in 2008 (i believe)...so next time would be 2016. you may be able to appeal your tax value...i know some people on here did that when the original assessments came out and got their value adjusted...but i haven't known anyone to do it in between assessments.

[Edited on January 18, 2011 at 12:10 PM. Reason : ^well there you go...]

1/18/2011 12:09:57 PM

Oh, it gets better. The county did a blanket 40% increase on all homes after the housing bubble burst, so your home value for tax purposes went way up while the actual value was falling dramatically.

Trying to reassess to better match home values after a few years of a market trend is one thing, but what they did was far worse - just up the value because that's the only direction prices go, right? Never mind reality.

Think of it this way. Would you allow them to reassess after 2-3 years if the market took a sudden up-swing? Same applies in the other direction. They (local government) aren't going to want to take a hit to their revenues, so good luck.

[Edited on January 18, 2011 at 12:17 PM. Reason : -]

1/18/2011 12:13:16 PM

1/18/2011 12:39:46 PM

Quote :

"zillow values can be pretty far off"

In my experience, http://www.zillow.com is fairly conservative (low). I feel like you could use their site as a great resource when buying. If you pay what they say it is worth, you got a pretty good deal.

FWIW, Johnston County just re-evaluated this year (2010) and I feel like they did a decent job with the values.

1/18/2011 3:54:02 PM

I hope zillow is low. They had the house I'm buying assessed at 170k when the asking price was 177k. The last thing I need right now is for the house to appraise low.

1/19/2011 1:49:08 PM

It is true that Zillow prices tend to be a little "low" but they are also closer to what people are actually willing to pay for a house these days.

That being said, you^ didn't buy AT the asking price did you?

1/19/2011 2:10:13 PM

No, but close. The seller wasn't really willing to go much lower, and looking at the comps and stuff the asking price was pretty reasonable. Either way I'm pretty sure they're losing money, they bought the house two years ago for like 187k.

If the appraisal comes out lower than our agreed price we'll have to go back to negotiating. I just don't feel like having hiccups in the process.

1/19/2011 2:53:49 PM

I wouldn't get too worried. Unless there is some big discrepancy, most the time the "appraisals" for closings are really just "drive-by appraisals." If it looks good with the comps they'll usually come back with the appraisal = to the selling price just so there are no hiccups.

If your buyer's agent is any good they would have raised a red flag if they thought there was any way the place would have a more than small chance to appraise lower than your offered price and it also should already be negotiated into the contract what would happen if this was the case.

1/19/2011 3:08:57 PM

Yeah I ran it by them and they don't see it happening, they basically said what you just did.

I'm not super concerned with it either, but the fiance is a bit of a worrier.

1/19/2011 3:10:32 PM

I've always thought zillow's price is higher than actual value. I bought my house at more than 100k below zillow's appraisal.

1/19/2011 3:22:43 PM

I would guess that one of these would have to be the case then: (assuming that is a trend you noticed in all the houses you looked at and not just your house)

1) You live in an area with very few reasonable comps / a lack of data on similar homes. Lack of data = poor accuracy of statistics. Either your house is much more expensive or much cheaper than surrounding homes or the houses are all custom and just all over the board.

2) You bought a house well over ~$500,00 or something. Obviously we have been talking flat numbers here and as house prices go up, the more expensive homes get hit much harder during a real estate pull back like we have had. A house market pulling back 5% on a 500,000 house versus a 177,000 is going to be swinging a lot more and Zillow isn't always up to date on that.

3) You bought in an area which has dropped dramatically in price since the real estate bubble burst because it was supernaturally overinflated previously and the data hasn't started pushing Zillow down yet.

Obviously you could see where I am going here. There are a number of reasons your specific house could be like that. In general, in my area Zillow seems to list just a tad below appraised values and closer to what people are actually willing to offer on the properties. It was like that on most the houses I looked at last year.

[Edited on January 19, 2011 at 3:39 PM. Reason : .]

1/19/2011 3:36:45 PM

sorry to derail the thread but, i'm curious, but what percentage was zillow off? they go into a large amount of detail if you read their FAQ's about how they derive their value and they pride themselves in being +/- 10% for the majority of homes.

however, i have noticed that they have a hard time with homes that are vastly different from the surrounding area. (e.g. a $1M+ home in an area with median home values of $150k)

1/19/2011 3:38:31 PM

zillow has my old condo in delaware zestimate at $219,500.

I had it listed at $109k for 120 days before taking my company's relocation buyout at $120k, the average of their appraisals... which, I figured should be low since they don't really want to have to buy your house. was purchased for $145k. thank god for loss protection clauses in relo policies.

I only had four showings at ~50% of the "zestimate".

zillow's kinda horseshit.

1/19/2011 3:49:02 PM

Like I said, it just depends on the area. You just have to do the research versus comps while you are buying to see whether it is a useful tool in your area. The Zillow estimate for my house which sold last year and the 4 other houses in my neighborhood who have sold really recently is within 2.5% of the sale price in each case. (In each case it is just slightly lower).

1/19/2011 3:59:56 PM

i was hoping zillow was correct when i decided to sell that place

1/19/2011 4:05:48 PM

if zillow is correct on the place i live at my landlord paid 40k more than what they are currently suggesting. I do see a lot of reasons why the price went down though, not only because of the economy but also the area and development company running out of cash and just leaving everybody high and dry.

He paid 203k in 2003 and it is now 'suggesting' 163k, with the latest property tax assessment values are nearly 240k! ridiculous!

but for 160k the place would be a great purchase, and the mortgage + HOA dues would still be lower than my rent!

1/19/2011 4:43:21 PM

To be clear I was referring to the list of tax assessments, hence why i said "assessed for 170k". I probably should have rephrased that whole post.

The zestimate is actually 183k.

1/19/2011 7:31:35 PM

Quote :

"zillow values can be pretty far off...so i wouldn't put too much stock in that."

Quote :

"In my experience, http://www.zillow.com is fairly conservative (low)."

this...there aren't really any comps in my neighborhood (just one, actually, my neighbors), but zillow goes two neighborhoods away for the first comp

they have the price of my house right at what i paid for it nearly 3 years ago...when i bought it, it was appraised for $11k more

while i don't necessarily think i got a crazy deal or anything, i'll trust the actual appraisal over zillow's algorithm

1/20/2011 7:43:17 AM