People go into depression for days sometimes when reviewing the increase in their property tax bill. Towns need to cap their increases. Better yet work toward decreasing tax bills.

Increases in living expenses, insurance’s, fuel and food prices leave many average working class homeowners strapped for cash. The cost of collecting property taxes doesn't help either.

Think about the enormous amount of money it takes to collect that property tax. First there is a huge amount of money that needs to be spent on the blanket property tax appraisal service. The tax collector needs an office and staff. So does the tax assessor. The town lawyer needs to get paid for every tax appeal that the town has to fight. Then there are the staff cars, health, pensions and perks that the taxpayer has to pay for. These characters collect their very own taxes in this make-work job! Absurd!!!

The alternative to property taxes would be to close the property tax collection offices and fire everyone involved in property tax collection. Towns can raise taxes via income or sales tax NOT property taxes. People could retire in their own homes and live more comfortably. The YOKE will be gone!

The housing glut, increases in property taxes and skyrocketing homeowners' insurance rates are having an effect on the real estate market. Often a home’s values are lower than the sales price since many price concession are made.

Before putting it on the market, they may install new carpets, new vinyl windows, ceramic tile, new appliances, redo the kitchen, ceiling fans or replace window air conditioner units.

If the home still doesn’t sell they may paint the exterior a new color, redo the landscaping etc.

If after six months on the market, a potential buyer liked the home but did not like some of the add on features, they may ask for a price concession. In this buyers market, sellers may have to make numerous financial concessions, not reflected in the sales price, to unload their properties.

If you sold you a house for $450,000 but gave you $25,000 in concessions, then that house's real value is $425,000. But, since only the sold price is recorded you can’t tell the Department of Revenue that home values is lower than the sales price unless you prove it with a study.

Often, lawmakers call for blanket reassessments for a whole community costing millions of dollars. These reassessments usually result in many appeals due to faulty measurements and data collection irregularities and do nothing to change the tax base. Reassessments are a political shell game and I suspect, many times, they result in large kickbacks from the huge windfall from the assessment company.

If the building department and property tax department are doing the job they are paid for, reassessments are not necessary. Blanket reassessments do nothing except fleece the taxpayer. An occasional outbuilding, deck or pool that escaped notice does in no way justifies the huge expense of a blanket reassessment. That expense can never be recouped and leave the taxpayer, again, holding the bag.

When one get the "sold listings" only the total price for the home is given. It is not broken down for lot value and house value. The tax assessor, on the other hand, comes up with a value for the house and a guesstimate for the lot.

When doing an appraisal, the specific adjustments that effect the lot (slope, location, noise levels, view … etc.) should be taken against the lot. Most of the adjustment are usually made against the house. For practical purposes, most developed areas have few recent sold vacant lot data points to obtain a large enough sample for estimating a lots value. So when estimating property (house and lot) value for a tax appeal, one makes adjustments against the figures the assessor assigns.

In real life when doing an appraisal, one does not come up with a figure for the property and then the house. It is not broken down that way. When one does an appraisal for a vacant lot, then one has to obtain recent sold data points from recently sold lots to make an educated comparable analysis.
Again, those data points are complicated when a home is place on the property since many factors and influences go into WHY the home sold for what it did. Only the magician tax assessor seems to be able to pull figures and assign lot values out of their hats.

As a matter of practicality, we don't come up with lot's value, the tax assessor does. Our only data point is only a sold price for a house. We have to figure out in the end how to distribute the final adjustment value for the house and assign a portion of it to lot value or house value. When we win the case the tax assessor may juxtapose and assign a different value to lot and house.

The important element is the quality of recently sold comparables that are closest to the subject property in location, time of sale, and square footage.