Property Taxes

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Disclaimer: Originally posted December 2, 2019 on a site that has since become unusable for my purposes.

 My grandpa used to say the only things you have to do are pay taxes and die.  A bit morbid, perhaps!  But he’s right.  The flip side is, you don’t have to accept the property tax bill you’re sent!  I recently had the opportunity to help a friend whose property taxes skyrocketed this year.  Her home had been reassessed and she was told its value had increased by over $30,000.  While the county wasn’t going to make it easy, they did give her an option to dispute the increase.
As a Realtor, I know quite a bit about home values, so my friend immediately called me for help.  I conducted a Competitive Market Analysis, basically a quick walk-through of the house and asked her several questions, then sat down with that information to evaluate.  Turns out?  She was right!  The new assessment pretty unreasonable, it was nearly double what the house was actually worth.  I was also able to share some information about exemptions she could file to lower her tax rate even more.
It took my friend about an hour with me and another hour or so working with the assessor’s office, but that’s a small price to pay to have her property taxes cut drastically.  I just got the completed assessment to her today and she’ll be meeting with the assessor tomorrow, but I can’t wait to hear just how much it’s going to save her.

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