Rising values
Detailed information on 2015 county tax digests – the total value of all taxable property in each county – won’t be available for months. But recent digests show values rebounded significantly in 2014. The chart shows the rise or fall in the “net maintenance and operations” tax digests for each county.
County 2012 2013 2014
Clayton -9.3% -2.0% -0.9%
Cobb -2.3% -1.0% 4.3%
DeKalb -8.5% 0.4% 7.1%
Fulton -3.2% 0.0% 2.0%
Gwinnett -5.6% -3.0% 9.0%
SOURCE: AJC analysis of county tax digests
Assessment notices on the way
Metro Atlanta counties have already begun mailing tax assessment notices to property owners. Here’s a tentative schedule of when counties plan to mail notices. Property owners have 45 days from the date the notice of assessment is issued to dispute the valuation.
County tentative notice dates
Cherokee: May 11
Clayton: April 24
Cobb: May 8
DeKalb: May 29
Douglas: June 15
Fayette: May 5
Forsyth: May 15
Fulton: June 1-5
Gwinnett: April 3
Henry: April 17
Paulding: May 29
Source: County tax assessors
What are keys to winning appeals of your property values? At MyAJC.com you can find tips, help understanding assessment and appeal forms and answers to other questions you might have about the rights of property owners.
Seven years after the start of a real estate meltdown brought on by the Great Recession, metro Atlanta property values are rebounding – and tens of thousands of homeowners will see it when they get their property tax assessments in the mail this spring.
Henry County expects the value of taxable property to rise 10 percent this year. Cobb County anticipates a 6.75 percent increase. Fulton (5 percent) and Gwinnett (up to 3 percent) also expect significant increases.
Other counties say it’s too soon to tell how much – or if – values will rise. And the effect of rising values on property tax bills won’t be known until elected officials set tax rates later this year.
But private appraisers who watch county tax values say many properties are still overvalued because counties didn’t cut values enough when real estate values were plummeting. They expect steady business as taxpayers get their assessment notices in coming weeks and seek to appeal those values.
“That death and taxes are certain is true,” said private appraiser Stan Anderson. “But should we not try to put them off as best we can?”
Property taxes and the values they’re based on have been contentious issues as real estate values plummeted in the wake of the recession. Beginning in 2009, a series of Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigations found county assessors weren’t cutting home values fast enough to keep up with the market collapse. That meant thousands of homeowners were paying too much in property taxes.
In response, the General Assembly passed bills making it easier for property owners to appeal county appraisals. And tens of thousands of metro Atlanta homeowners appealed, winning concessions and lowering their tax bills.
In recent years, the market has rebounded, and a 2013 AJC investigation found county appraisals closer to or even below market value in many areas.
A preliminary look at 2015 assessments shows county appraisals continue to rise as real estate values rebound. In Gwinnett, for example, Chief Appraiser Steve Pruitt said the county raised the tax values of about 91,000 residential properties this year, while cutting values of about 6,200. The vast majority of properties, more than 150,000, were unchanged.
Overall, Pruitt expects the total value of taxable real estate – residential, commercial and industrial – to rise 2 to 3 percent. That follows a 9 percent increase last year.
“(The market) bounced like a basketball and it did rebound,” Pruitt said. “But it has slowed to a much more manageable level now.”
County appraisers base their values on sales of comparable properties in the same neighborhood. If real estate prices are rising, that will be reflected in sales — and in tax values.
Tax bills are based in part on those values (tax rates are the other major factor). Generally, the higher a property’s value, the bigger the tax bill.
Critics contend many counties were slow to cut values as real estate prices plummeted and have been too quick in some cases to raise them now that the market is recovering. Jeff George of KLM Property Tax Solutions cited Henry County, where overall values are expected to rise more than 10 percent this year.
“I think they were pretty aggressive (in raising values),” George said.
Henry County Chief Appraiser Charles Reddoch disputed that. He said the county’s values are based on a resurgent market. He said he expects fewer than 5,000 appeals this year out of roughly 83,000 taxable properties, about the same as recent years.
“According to our numbers, we’re just dead on the market,” Reddoch said.
Countywide estimates don’t necessarily reflect what’s happening everywhere. In Fulton County, for example, Chief Appraiser David Fitzgibbon expects property values to rise at least 5 percent this year countywide. But they likely will rise more in some north Fulton neighborhoods and less in some south Fulton communities.
Though taxable values are rising, they’re nowhere near their pre-recession peaks. An AJC analysis of county assessment data shows 2014 tax values in the five largest metro Atlanta counties were 12 to 36 percent below their peak.
Henry County’s Reddoch said he’s optimistic real estate values will continue to rise over the next couple years. But he doesn’t expect to see the kind of market boom that predated the recession.
“I don’t know that we’ll ever get back to the 2008 market,” he said.
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