Assessment appeal services - Certified Appraisals, Inc.

Assessment Appeal Services

Many homeowners are concerned that the assessed value for their home is overstated and want to know how to verify the assessor value.

A good place for homeowners to start investigating their assessed value is to contact the assessor office and verify that the information that is stated on your property card matches your property. Items to verify include the number of bathrooms, number of bedrooms, total square feet of the home and total finished square feet of the home (including the lower level/basement). Other items to verify include exterior amenities such as porch and patio areas, number of garage spaces, whether the subject includes a walkout basement and whether assessor recognizes if the subject is located near a busy street and/or commercial areas. It is also important to verify the quality rating the assessor's office has for your property. This rating will be partially based on permits obtained to improve your home. For example, if a permit was pulled to replace windows, or to finish a basement, the assessor's office will use this information to rate the quality of your home.

Once you have verified and/or corrected any discrepancies on your property card, it is time to do some research for comparable sales. Typically, the assessor site will include a link to comparable sales data that may have been used when assessing your property. This link will include data that can be used to assess your property. The homeowner should look for sales that match the style, size, characteristics, quality and location of their home. Depending on the number of sales, this research can be a challenge. Trying to decipher the sales data can take time and effort.

Certified Appraisals, Inc can be of assistance to the homeowner with this process. We will use our knowledge and data analysis to assist the homeowner with the process of determining if the assessed value of their home is reasonable and supported by the marketplace. We offer varying products to assist with the process including preparing an appraisal report and/or providing market data to the homeowner for review. Our goal is to provide the homeowner with information that can be used to determine whether they should move forward with the appeal process.

Please contact our office with any questions.

Calculating Your Assessed Value

In order to estimate your real estate taxes, you will need the total market value from the assessor site (this includes the land value and improvement value). Take the total market value (for example $500,000 total estimated market value) and multiply that amount by the "Assessment Rate" (for this example the assessment rate is 6.700). $500,000 x .067 = $33,500. $33,500 would be the assessed value. You will then multiply the $33,500 assessed value by the amount of your mill rate (this number can be found on your assessor tax information under the section titled "Tax Entity and Levy Information"). For example, if you mill rate is 69.420, you will multiply $33,500 assessed value by .06942 mill rate ($33,500 x .06942 = $2,325.57 ($2,326 rounded). So, $2,326 would be your estimated taxes due for the upcoming year.

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