Assessors aren’t enemy, ‘they can be your friend’

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By David Wickert

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Sunday Conversation with ... John Adams, Cherokee County’s chief appraiser

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John Adams has been chief appraiser for Cherokee County since 1995. He’s hoping that enough of the county’s neighborhoods have stabilized that “there won’t be a downward trend for 2012.”

Special John Adams has been chief appraiser for Cherokee County since 1995. He’s hoping that enough of the county’s neighborhoods have stabilized that “there won’t be a downward trend for 2012.”

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As chief appraiser, John Adams is responsible for appraising property in Cherokee County for tax purposes. It’s not an easy job in the best of times, and it’s gotten harder as the real estate market crashed in the wake of the Great Recession.

Nonetheless, Cherokee County’s appraisals mirror the market fairly closely, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis. Adams sees that as a sign that the real  estate market in Cherokee might be stabilizing.

Adams has been chief appraiser in Cherokee since 1995 and has worked for the county since 1992. He also worked for the county briefly in the late 1970s before working in the private sector.

Adams shared his thoughts about government appraisals and the real estate market in a recent conversation with the AJC. Here’s an edited excerpt of that conversation.

Q: What’s the difference between the mass appraisals governments do for tax purposes and the appraisals done by private fee appraisers?

A: You hire a fee appraiser because you want to get a loan. They can take several days on one property, looking all around to find three (comparable properties) that are just perfect. It would be almost impossible for any county to hire enough people to do that kind of appraisal countywide. In mass appraisal, you divide up the county into different neighborhoods, different property classes like rural and commercial and industrial. Then you take all these influences in general and apply them to all of the properties, not just to the ones that sold.

Q: What factors make mass appraisal harder when the market is plummeting?

A: It’s easier to value properties in a stable market. The market can just change overnight. It’s tied to so many different things. In the boom years, we had foreclosures and bank sales. When you have 200 or 300 of them vs. 7,000 or 8,000 good sales, there’s no real influence. Now we have 1,200 or 1,300 bank sales, 2,000 foreclosures and 2,000 good sales.

Q: Is the Cherokee real estate market stabilizing?

A: Hopefully [the AJC’s analysis is] an indication that enough of the neighborhoods have stabilized that there won’t be a downward trend for 2012.

Q: A new state law required counties for the first time to notify every property owner of the county’s estimated value. Cherokee County has been doing that for quite a while. What effect does that have on your appraisals?

A: We started doing it in ’96 or ’97. It’s easier to send a notice to everyone each year, whether the value is going up or going down. Our county commissioners were all for it. It gave them a better handle [on property values] every year and helps with planning. This practice probably kept us closer to the market than some other counties. We were making these adjustments to the entire county every year. A lot of counties do a third [of properties] each year. We tried to keep real close to the conditions in the entire county all the time.

Q: You also didn’t see the big spike in appeals that other counties saw this year.

A: Back when the market was going up we were sending out 90,000 notices a year and getting 1,200 to 1,400 appeals. When the market started going down, a lot of people said [our values] should go down quicker. We got 2,800 in a year. It’s still 3 percent or less of the total. We feel like it was because we had for 15-plus years sent everyone a notice every year, so they always had the opportunity to appeal.

Q: What else would you like folks to  know?

A: The assessors are not your enemy. They can be your friend. If you’ve got information [that would affect your property value], give it to the assessor’s office.