Metro Atlanta / State News 1:22 p.m. Sunday, December 6, 2009

How counties responded as values shifted

AJC investigation: Cobb least likely to change values

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Clayton County

● Clayton changed prices for 72,213 of 83,238 residential parcels, or 87 percent — by far the greatest percentage of the five counties in the study.

● While Clayton lowered, by percentage, the most parcels, it gave residents the smallest break, a 5 percent median change.

● Clayton’s sales values, though, suffered the steepest decline among the five counties at a 43 percent median decrease.

Cobb County

● Property owners in Cobb had about a 1 in 8 chance of getting their values changed, the lowest of any metro county. Cobb reported reappraising 27,780 parcels among 229,326 total residential parcels.

● Thirteen Cobb ZIP codes had prices for fewer than 1,000 parcels changed by the county.

● While the five counties reported 19 ZIP codes with value losses of more than $100 million, Cobb didn’t have a single one.

DeKalb County

● DeKalb lowered the median assessment in nine ZIP codes by more than 20 percent. All were mainly south and east of Decatur.

● From Decatur north, residents got very little relief. In fact, the county changed the values on just 8,530 parcels in the county’s 10 northernmost ZIP codes, compared with 73,281 in the 10 southernmost ZIP codes.

● Even though DeKalb eventually was the most aggressive county in lowering values, sales often fell even more.

Fulton County

● The county had five ZIP codes in which 10,000 or more properties were revalued. Assessors deleted $303.4 million in value from them.

● Assessors lowered values for 173,371 residential parcels, about 56 percent of all residential parcels in Fulton.

● Still, despite median sales values that plummeted 19 percent countywide, Fulton gave a median change of just 6 percent.

Gwinnett County

● Tax assessors dropped values between 8 percent and 15 percent in virtually every ZIP code, even for the priciest residential properties. The county touched 71,463 of 256,257 residential parcels, or about 28 percent.

● Sales values, though, showed more dramatic swings. The county had seven ZIP codes in which sales values fell more than 15 percent. But in ZIP code 30517, the median sales price climbed 22 percent.



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