| Author |
Message |
    
Njjoseph
| | Posted on Thursday, March 8, 2001 - 9:10 am: |     |
Alidah, exactly what I've been saying! Realtors should be required to give the valuations. This number is as important as the rate. For example, a house valued at $450K and selling at $550K (as your example indicated) would send a flag to Mr. Galante, and the valuation could be raised to the selling price. This would result in an increase of $2750 in taxes!
In addition, you have also witnessed the phenomenon that I've seen: houses are listed at figures WAY ABOVE their valuations. Leads me to think there are a lot of undervalued homes in Maplewood. |
Ffof
| | Posted on Thursday, March 8, 2001 - 9:12 am: | |
Mem-- "almost heaven...West Virginia...blue ridge mountains...shenandoah river..." Name that tune!!! But please, don't make me live there! (I don't think they have the right recyclables!) |
Bobk
| | Posted on Thursday, March 8, 2001 - 9:51 am: | |
I wish you guys would make the distinction between an asking price and a sale price.
Yes, a lot of homes on the market right now in the Jefferson area have asking prices above the current assessment. The question is will they sell for these prices with the higher taxes and increased supply? Also, if the buyer knows what the new taxes are going to be what will be the effect? I find it hard to believe that anyone looking for a house in Maplewood would buy without getting the new assessment. I also find it hard to believe that a realtor whould be handing out fact sheets showing the 2000 taxes, but then that is a tough business to be in. |
Bobk
| | Posted on Thursday, March 8, 2001 - 9:51 am: | |
I wish you guys would make the distinction between an asking price and a sale price.
Yes, a lot of homes on the market right now in the Jefferson area have asking prices above the current assessment. The question is will they sell for these prices with the higher taxes and increased supply? Also, if the buyer knows what the new taxes are going to be what will be the effect? I find it hard to believe that anyone looking for a house in Maplewood would buy without getting the new assessment. I also find it hard to believe that a realtor whould be handing out fact sheets showing the 2000 taxes, but then that is a tough business to be in. |
Njjoseph
| | Posted on Thursday, March 8, 2001 - 10:00 am: | |
Bobk, the fact sheets I've received come from the MLS, and I believe that they contain the 2000-year figure because the 2001 figure is not available at this time. However, when you ask the realtor directly, they usually tell you what they consider to be the new tax amount. This is probably valuation times 2.75%. They don't tell you that it's an estimate based on uncertain items (i.e. the rate) or that it's based on the 2000 budget, even though we are well into 2001.
I do understand the difference between listing price and selling price. We'll see what these houses sell for, but if you see a house listed for 20% or 30% over valuation, I tend to believe the owner thinks he could get that much, if not more. My next door neighbor sold his house at the asking price which is 30% over the valuation. Is it a trend? We'll see in a few months. |
Plonk
| | Posted on Thursday, March 8, 2001 - 10:33 am: | |
The story thus far? After the initial reval Jefferson area residents feel they have been unjustly over-evaluated (at this point the tax rate is 2.66) Groups convene, protests are threatened, town meetings get out of control. Eventually a blanket reduction is introduced (starting at around 50g) to all those in this area who challenge the assessment. In order to cover the loss in tax revenue the mill rate must go up. (we're talking 3.0 or even 3.2 when you throw in the school budget). So now most everyone's taxes are going up again. Especially strange considering some of those Jeffersonians who fought to have their evalutations reduced will now be paying more taxes than they would have with the original assessment. Now here's the kicker, houses in the west are selling above their assessed value (so the original assessment was right all along?) and the rest of us get to pay for it. So this is what they mean by fair. Oh, I get it now. |
Bobk
| | Posted on Thursday, March 8, 2001 - 11:04 am: | |
Have to admit that I don't spend my Sunday afternoons going around to open houses. However, when I drive by and see people walking out clutching pieces of paper that I believe are prepared by the listing agent, not just copies of the MLS listing. This is what I meant by fact sheet. Sometimes I am not as clear as I should be.
Njjoseph, I believe, from previous postings you live in Middle Maplewood. Maybe that area is under assessed? LOL |
Njjoseph
| | Posted on Thursday, March 8, 2001 - 11:30 am: | |
Bobk, yes I live in the "middle" section, between Prospect and Springfield. I don't know if the area's underassesed or not. I have gone to 6 open houses, and they are all listed at a price over the assessment. When I looked at the spreadsheet, I saw a significant number of homes all over town, especially the west side, that sold in 2000 for prices well over the assessment. My feeling is that assessments all over town are lower than the fair market value.
There are exceptions. However, I wonder if these exceptions are truly assessed correctly, and the comparables are underassessed. It's a gut feeling based on reviewing the spreadsheets and doing some drive-bys, but I don't have concrete evidence this is the case. As I've said many times, we should see in the next 6 or 12 months if the distribution is equitable. Although valuations may change over the next year, if they change all over town, the majority of us may not see changes in taxes from 2001 to 2002.
Bottom line for me: is my valuaton fair, based on Maplewood real estate? Yes! Are my taxes reasonable? No! Do I have a solution? Not yet, but I know it will have to include more commercial property on Springfield Ave., and probably will have to include severe changes to the school budget. |
Melidere
| | Posted on Thursday, March 8, 2001 - 10:50 pm: | |
you know
i was really likin you, njjoseph, until you made that school budget crack.
heh
get your fingers off that budget. the schools need MORE, not less.
it pays off in spades. ask anyone in the coveted 'jefferson' district. |
Gerardryan
| | Posted on Thursday, March 8, 2001 - 11:01 pm: | |
"Severe changes to the school budget" could very well mean "Having a whole lot more of it come from Trenton", Meli.... |
Melidere
| | Posted on Friday, March 9, 2001 - 7:57 am: | |
oh
never mind |
Bobk
| | Posted on Friday, March 9, 2001 - 8:19 am: | |
On Thursday the Star Ledger publishes recent home sales in the In the Towns section. Being a true compulsive I checked these sales against the reval data base. There were 11 sales of single family homes (I didn't check the condo sales). Presumably these are sales that closed fairly recently so the data may have some significance.
In total the 11 sales were for $2.85mil, which is about 10% higher than the assessments of $2.58mil.
Seven of these sales were on what we now erroneously call the Eastside. These sales totaled $1.2mil, about 6% over the assessed value
There were two sales on the Westside totaling $737k, also 6% over the assessments.
In Middle Maplewood (ie: all other) there were two sales totaling $905k, a whooping 22% over the assessed values.
I am the first to admit that these numbers have no statistical validity because of the small size of the sample and the fact some may not have been arms length sales, but I find it quite interesting none the less.
The News Record published a long list of sales, but these go back to October 1 and that is now ancient history. |
Bix
| | Posted on Friday, March 9, 2001 - 8:32 am: | |
A whooping 22%?
Whoop, there it is.
B|X |
Njjoseph
| | Posted on Friday, March 9, 2001 - 8:58 am: | |
Melidere, please don't hate me yet! I don't want to see cuts to the school budget, and I know there are already programs in jeopardy. I only brought up the budget to point out that 60% of our tax money goes to such an important piece of our town that we can't really play with it. I guess I didn't articulate my point very well.
However, I'm not optimistic that Maplewood will be able to realize and tax reductions until the state kicks in more aid. |
Melidere
| | Posted on Friday, March 9, 2001 - 9:29 am: | |
i don't hate you...lol....i'm thrilled to have you as a new neighbor.
and yes, i misunderstood you. sorry. |
Alidah
| | Posted on Friday, March 9, 2001 - 9:23 pm: | |
For people whose taxes are going up, we're not alone in this. I've heard that Bridgewater has had a huge increase in taxes, although I don't know if it's propelled by the same conditions we have here.
I've also heard that a lot of the exurbs' taxes are going up tremendously because of the increase in population.
About school budgets--Chatham schools recently raised 100K in taxes to build a brand spanking new state of the art rec room for the maintenance staff! |
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