DeKalb: Most property values haven’t fallen

Assessors across metro Atlanta have been forced to cut taxable values for thousands of properties because of what experts are calling a real estate depression. But DeKalb County residents won’t get the breaks given to their neighbors.

Assessors in the county have decided to ignore foreclosure sales and lower values for only a handful of properties.

Hank Ruffin, DeKalb’s interim chief appraiser, said he realized the county’s position would draw criticism.

“I do expect to hear it,” Ruffin said. “It has taken a very detailed analysis to get us to this point. We may not be doing what everyone else is doing, but each county is unique.”

Count state Rep. Edward Lindsey (R-Atlanta) among those critics.

He said he found DeKalb’s actions impossible to understand.

“It’s an appallingly arrogant action by the assessors office,” Lindsey said. “It shows why we have the need to put into place the reforms we’ve been recommending.”

On Saturday, DeKalb mailed about 29,000 revaluation notices. Of them, about 13,500 went to properties assessors say lost value.

Neighboring Clayton and Fulton counties lowered property values for about 60,000 parcels. Cobb won’t mail change notices until May.

Tom Atkinson, who owns four rental houses in south DeKalb, was shocked to learn the county was holding to its 2008 values on his properties even though all four are in DeKalb’s top ZIP code for foreclosure activity, 30032. He filed property tax returns on all four seeking substantial savings.

“It’s like they have not looked at anything,” Atkinson said.

Ruffin said DeKalb’s actions are supported by sales ratio studies that show much of DeKalb has weathered the real estate crisis relatively well.

“We seem to be out there by ourselves to some degree,” Ruffin said.

Other studies have shown declines of home sales prices across DeKalb and other metro area counties.

One report, completed this year by the Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership (ANDP), found sales prices were far below tax appraisals. If tax values aren’t adjusted to account for plummeting values, property owners in the five core metro Atlanta counties will overpay property taxes by $367.2 million, ANDP found.

That includes $118 million in potential overpayment from owners of homes and businesses in areas most devastated by foreclosure. The study found median sales prices in three high-foreclosure ZIP codes in south DeKalb were on average 57 percent of the tax appraisal.

John O’Callaghan, ANDP president, said wide parts of DeKalb should have seen tax appraisals fall.

“We were seeing the most significant drops (in value from foreclosures) behind only Fulton and Clayton,” O’Callaghan said.

Holding the line on assessments in DeKalb could be good news for county commissioners, city council members and school board members, who all rely on numbers generated by the assessors to set tax rates.

Still, DeKalb Commissioner Elaine Boyer said she found DeKalb hold its values “unbelievable” based on the county’s record foreclosure numbers.

She promised to ask the assessors to meet with commissioners to explain their 2009 numbers.

“We need to have consideration from our tax assessors on what’s going on,” Boyer said.