| Author | Message | ||
     Thomas |
If you were at the Township meeting then it is obvious Vic & Jerry has let us down. They are content with the current assessment and they are defending Certified Valuations. Again how is Vics home worth 130k | ||
| Jake |
I'd love to know what school of economics our "Highly Esteemed New Mayor" graduated from. It must be the same school that another "economic scholar" FORMER GOV. Jim Florio use to run. The arrogance exhibited last night at the Town Meeting was appalling & hauntingly similar to attitude that was prevailing in the early 80's in Trenton. His ego & and flawed logic ruined the economy of N.J. Let's not make the same mistake here in Maplewood!! | ||
| Lseltzer |
Thomas: Assuming you have the number correct, that's not an unreasonable price for Hilton. Look at the real estate listings. There are houses that price in Maplewood all the time. The Star-Ledger has an article on last night's meeting (http://www.nj.com/njcommunities/ledger/essex/index.ssf?/njcommunities/ledger/essex/120f1eb.html). I'm glad I didn't go, sounds like it would have been aggravating. | ||
| Njjoseph |
Thomas -- have you seen Vic's home? I'm not sure that any of us could make judgments about another's assessment without even seeing the house. He lives in the Hilton section, where I'm told you can buy houses in the low $100's. | ||
| Nohero |
Thomas, you start out by saying: But, that is not what we heard watching the meeting. We heard that the process is being extended, in order to allow further examination of the results of the revaluation. As for people who can't believe the difference in value between "on the hill" or "near the station", and the Hilton section, I have two words for you: "Believe it!" Take it from someone who "traded up" to a larger house in town, from a house in the Hilton section. We lost money on the sale of the house in the Hilton section (once we were able to sell it). The change in our taxes (from old house to new house) was not proportionate to the difference in price between what the old house sold for, and what the new house cost us. The taxes on the Hilton house were clearly too high; this not only caused us to overpay for all the years we lived there, but it also further depressed the value of the house when we sold it. I think that the plans to improve the Springfield Avenue area will improve the home value situation. Unfortunately for us, our home value in Hilton was affected by the policies in place during the "good old days", that is, of Mayor Grasmere and the long-overdue revaluation. | ||
| Nilmiester |
Mayor Grasmere? What? The last reval was in 1981 during his tenure! Why wasn't this done in 1992,1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 or 1998 before the bubble world of real estate? And by the way, no one on that Township Committee will ever come close to Mayor Grasmere no matter how long they "serve". | ||
| Oxford |
We were riveted by last night's meeting, which we watched on public access cable from about 8 pm to its ending at 1 am. It's clear that certain key members of the TC are clueless -- utterly clueless. THey were raked over the coals by Maplewood citizens who were more articulate, more passionate and certainly more informed. As a taxpayer whose taxes will rise ONLY about 13% -- as if that's OK -- I sympathize with my neighbors getting really socked. Recall this township committee now. It is obvious we are being represented by a group of five people who do not have this town's best interests at heart, who are not intellectually capable of making such decisions (demonstrated by their blatant inability to supervise the contractor they hired to do the reval), and who are swayed by a few special interests on the east side of town. Mayor Deluca's last, most ridiculous point is that they can't certify the old numbers because so many people on the east side will petition for lower valuations. Fine! Let them! The money has already been coming out of their pockets. THey bought their houses knowing what they would pay. NO ONE in this country should see taxes raised by 30, 40, 50 percent and more. | ||
| Overtaxdalready |
Amen, Oxford. It seems obvious that this committee's mantra is "we can't do that". | ||
| Movingtotown |
To Oxford- Please help me understand this confusing situation. I am very close to purchasing a home in Maplewood, but this whole revaluation has scared me off temporarily. How do you know that your taxes will increase by 13%? Is the tax rate of 2.66% new? It seems significantly higher than practically everywhere else I am looking (mostly in the 1.5%-1.9% range). Does every homeowner in town already know what his/her new taxes will be already? Please help... | ||
| Lseltzer |
Movingtotown, I think this has already been explained to you on another thread ("They Need to Replenish the Reserve"). The 2.66 rate is the rate necessary, given the valuations, to achieve existing budgetary needs, but it's only an estimate. The final rate can't be determined until the budget figures come in from the state, county and Board of Ed, not to mention the final reval figures. Maplewood may have a higher residential property tax rate, but that's largely because it has a very small commercial property tax base compared to most surrounding communities. | ||
| Jfb |
MovingToTown, Ask for the assessment for the home you are purchasing. Multiply that by .0266. If it is higher than the existing taxes on your prospective home then negociate a lower price. Good Luck | ||
| Nohero |
Mr. Nil - with respect to the good old days of Mayor Grasmere (or, more to the point, when the Township Committee had a republican majority): Yes, the 1981 reval was done under their watch. They did not do another reval on time, which caused this problem in the first place. Yes, this new reval should have been done sooner. However, if we all knew for certain what would happen to property values, a year in advance, we'd all be wealthy. And yes, the work done by Certified needs to be checked, and some of it probably needs to be corrected. But it is strictly Monday-morning quarterbacking to say now, that the reval process should have been delayed even more than it was. As for other aspects of the Grasmere years - the obvious neglect of parts of town, which occurred during those years, is finally being corrected. Sorry, that's the way I feel (mostly because I lived in a neglected area). | ||
| Movingtotown |
To LSeltzer, Thank you for the response, and yes, I did receive a similar response on another thread. But, what I did not understand from the other thread is that all houses in Maplewood have already received their potential new Certified Valuations, which is now clear to me. As a potential buyer, I guess I need this information in order to formulate a bid. so thank you very much for your assistance, and sorry to abuse the posting priviledge, just a bit confused, that's all. | ||
| Marie |
Perhaps the TC believes that those who can't afford the tax increases on the West side will sell to affluent New Yorker's who can, move to the East side, and send their kids to the Demonstration School, raising test scores and making the Hilton area the most desirable new neighborhood in Maplewood. In New Jersey! Richard Roberts LTD. will open another branch on Springfield Avenue as well as Anthony Garubo's, to accomodate the new affluence of the East side- Springfield Avenue will teem with jogging strollers - those white coffee cup holders from the right Start Catalogue dangling from the handle, filled with tall skim milk latte's from the new Starbuck's. Of course, the parking strips will have to be repainted in order to accomodate the width of all the SUV's that will be parking on S.A. after stopping at the Home Expo. on their way through Irvington to the new sports stadium in Newark to catch a Bears game. Assemblyman DeLuca will visit his old haunting grounds from time to time stopping for photo ops on Midland Blvd. where the first seeds of the dream to make Maplewood a fair and equitable town for all first came to be... For those who will sell their homes to the new Eastsiders - they'll take their profits and move to Springfield - lured by the new direct train to NYC. ...oh yeah, and Mayor DeLuca will donate his yearly tax savings to the CCR. | ||
| Lseltzer |
Movingtotown: Yes, you definitely need to get that figure. If your house is a good candidate for an appeal, you need to look into that too, and quickly. And sorry if I'm getting a little pissy. This board has been overwhelmed with bad logic in recent days, and nothing gets me madder. | ||
| Eliz |
Moving to town - further to Lseltzer's comments - I would insist to see the actual letter from Certified Valuations on any property I was bidding on if I were you. | ||
| Rckymtn |
Oxford, I really have a hard time believing that you would rather perpetuate the historical inequities between east side and west side so that those who live on the west side can avoid the inevitable. I agree that the 30-50% or more increases are ridiculous and can't possibly be supported by objective evidence. Those people need to follow the process: meet with Certified, meet with Ed Galante, and then appeal to the County if they are still not satisfied. But to force the east siders, which have just as many if not more people on fixed incomes, etc. as the west side, to continue to pay 25% more than their fair share each year is similarly ridiculous. A three-year phase-in will only work if a similarly proportional rebate is given to eastsiders each year to compensate them for shouldering the burden all these years. Silly idea, right? But without a reval NOW, the eastsiders will continue to pay more than is "fair", whatever that means, which is in effect giving the so-called westsiders an abatement. Face it -- the reval happened and taxes for some are going up dramatically, and down for some dramatically. There really is no way in H-E-double toothpick that the Township Committee can back out of this now. If you thought people were angry last night, wait til you see what happens if the T.C. decides to cave in to the bellyachers on the westside. | ||
| Overtaxdalready |
I simply don't believe that the "east side" has been "shouldering the burden all these years". You need to come down from the cross. You knew what your property taxes were when you bought the house. I'm sure if you were now faced with a 50% increase you'd be screaming just as loud. | ||
| Thomas |
Njjos yes I have seen Vics house and it is under valued at 130k the last house that sold on Lexington sold 185k. If this is typical assess in the hilton section I can see why their taxes are going down. He paid 119,000 in 1994. he'll be paying under $3,500. You can't even do that in Union. | ||
| Tracks |
Thomas: are you suggesting that V. Deluca was given a lower assesment because of his position in town? A pretty strong implication. how big is the other house compared to his? How come Jerry Ryan's assesment will cause an increase in his taxes? Have you been in Mr. DeLuca's house or seen the survey? |
