Property taxes: Clayton

Typical residential property overvalued by: 20%

2013 residential property appeals: 5,118

How the county stacks up: Clayton cut residential property values countywide by more than $433 million this year, or 7.8 percent. That follows even steeper cuts in previous years. But it still wasn't enough to keep up with the declining real estate market.

The typical Clayton residential appraisal was 20 percent over market value, according to the AJC’s analysis. Still, that’s a notable improvement from the county’s showing in last year’s analysis, when the typical appraisal was 48 percent over market value.

Large sales of cheap vacant land played a role in Clayton’s poor showing this year. Investors sometimes buy dozens of lots for a few thousand dollars each – far less than county tax values for those properties. When those properties were excluded from the newspaper’s analysis, Clayton’s typical appraisal was just 9 percent over market value.

Chief Appraiser Rodney McDaniel sees some signs the county real estate market is stabilizing, which would make it easier for his appraisers to value property. But he said the turnaround is driven primarily by investors buying homes to convert to rental properties. Many of those homes remain vacant, and if they don’t attract renters, McDaniel fears another downward spiral in property values.

“We could be looking at another dumpster fire here,” he said.