2012 Lucas County Real Estate Re-Evaluation Notice

Ours came today. The value dropped $4,000, or 1.9%.

I doubt it will be enough to have much impact on our property taxes, but it doesn't really hurt us either. (Our mortgage is nearly paid off, and we plan to stay here at least until our kids graduate from high school...which will be another 10 years or more. Long enough to ride out any value changes.)

I feel bad for any neighbors who might be underwater...we had a 14% drop a few years ago, so some are probably close.

You can use tools like Zillow.com to look at values in your neighborhood which use comps to benchmark your value. Probably more realistic than the Lucas County property tax "valuation," which is realy a different thing than the value. I have been monitoring the fall, and have been sobered on many occasions.
At the end of the day, the value is what somebody will pay you for it.

Forgot to add the location...Sylvania Twp (western part, near Centennial Terrace).

I have found Zillow.com to be overinflated sometimes too.

No way could I sell my house for what Zillow currently says it's worth (more than what the auditor says even).

A nearby neighbor (with a bigger & nicer house than mine) recently sold for much less than that. Thankful that I don't want or need to sell any time soon...I'd be worried about what we'd get. Yikes.

I'm purchasing the lot next door to me today, and it's being merged with my home lot. I'm hoping this will offset any drop. Eek.

Fortunately (or unfortunately.. depending on how look at it), mine is up 15%.

My value dropped $20,000...however, its bogus.
The auditors paperwork shows my place fully 400 square feet smaller, minus one bedroom and claims no fireplaces when I have two. It also lists my property as two-story. It is not. Guess I'll have to call and correct that, although it is tempting to take the tax deduction.

Congratulations! I'm sure you'll enjoy having a larger yard.

Main Lady and Centenarian both got their valuations. Main Lady's home went down, Centenarian's condo went up. They'll challenge the increase in the value of the condo.

You're quite right in saying that the home is actually worth what someone will pay for it. Ask any owner who is selling their home and most often you'll get a seriously overinflated price along with a justification screed that could easily be substituted for any Southern sky pilot's Sunday morning sermon. Just try telling them what the place is really worth after ten grand of repairs that were mandated by the department of health last summer and the silly SOB will probably take a swing at you.

The whole problem started with the EZ Credit fiasco. Now we have the EZ Repo circus, the falling demand and the corresponding drop in home value. I am very thankful that I do not personally own a home, and that Mom's home was paid for many years ago.

We had a BOR and reduced the value of our home by $40,000. Also, our home has long been paid for so we do not need to be concerned about mortgage. But as someone who would like to sell a large 2 story home for a smaller one we are still in a bind.

The homes that have sold in our neighborhood have fetched a decent price. But when the seller tells you of the give backs it reduces the value you received by thousands.

Guess we'll stay put till we can no longer climb the stairs.

Guess we'll stay put till we can no longer climb the stairs.

I'm glad you own your home.

You could try one of those electric stair lifts. Installation is a real grind, but once someone else gets it installed they work pretty well. Well, going up is no problem, but getting into the chair when headed down can be kind of an experience.

You could also live on the first floor and rent out the second. College students always need affordable housing. Put in an extra refrigerator and include kitchen privileges - sound good? And if you specialized in female tenants, you could advertize in Christian magazines and assure the parents that you'd provide supervision services as part of the deal.

I don't know, Jackie. This is starting to sound pretty good. You'd have a nice income coming in to supplement Social Security, ObmanationCare will see to your medical needs until an Intern screws up your heart medication and you cash in your chips. Meantime you'd get to talk to young people and tell them about the good old days.

Sounds pretty good to me!

madjack

Have a grandson that just graduated from Ohio State Medical School. He is now at the University of Chicago for his residency. He made me promise not to go in the hospital in July, August or September. Said it is proven to be the time where the worse care is provided as all new interns and residents come on board in these months.

Our home value also dropped almost $20k. That should be great for the property taxes but yikes! Luckily we're not planning any moves any time soon.

Does anyone know what they are actually basing the values on? Comparable houses in our neighborhood are selling for $40k more than the number we just received.

They drive by and raise or lower based on number of jeeps in the driveways on your block.

They drive by and raise or lower based on number of jeeps in the driveways on your block.

...or the number of jeeps on blocks in the driveways :)

Mine went from $235k to $187k. This number makes no sense as no home in my subdivision has sold for less than $208k in the past 2 years. I recently refinanced and the appraisal came in at $240k. I will happily take the tax reduction, for a while, until every entity in Lucas County pushes a tax levy due to their reduced revenues.

Back to Holland's original post, the banks don't care about tax values as they are not the real value of the home. No worries here about being "underwater". Only a purchase contract and an appraisal will determine true value.

Our home equity loan/line of credit at 5/3 Bank was based on 90% of the Lucas County Real Estate appraised value. In other words we had access to a max loan amount of 90% of the County appraised vlaue. With the County proposed drop in valuation that original max loan amount is now 112% of the County appraised value. I expect to get a notification in the mail that either the whole line of credit has been revoked or reduced.

Luckily we have not borrowed on the home equity and have a zero loan balance. Reading the fine print on the contract, 5/3 has the right to demand the balance in full immediately (if there was one) in the case of the value dropping below the line of credit amount.

We have kept the line open since we retired in case of emergencies. I worry that with our now reduced retiree income, and the general tightening by banks in lending because of the crash in the housing market, we could qualify for a new home equity loan at all. I'm quite concerned. This kind of precipitous drop in home value can have serious repercussions for some people.

I haven't received mine yet, but if it drops at all I will be disputing it.

We've spent the last ten years making major improvements to this place, including a complete gutting of the kitchen, new wiring, roof, and now the addition of the lot next door.

I wish it would just come already so that I can either start breathing again or start doing something to fix the situation.

I did get my tax bill yesterday. Just wish I would get the new valuation so that I can stop catastrophizing.

Cant you look on ARIES?

New values won't show up on AREIS until Oct 31.

Mine dropped 29%. Meh.

I called Anita Lopez's office, and spent some time talking with them about it. She said it's strictly based upon square footage, attributes (exterior) and other homes in the area.

In other words, it wouldn't matter if your walls were wallpapered with 24k gold leaf, unless you build on an addition or add a deck.

Mine went down 16%. It has been recently appraised so I know that the real value is a lot closer to the original valuation. Hopefully this will save me a few tax dollars though.

A question (hope it's not too far outside the scope of this thread): How many TT people are confident enough in the long-term viability of the general metro Toledo real estate market?

We are thinking of selling our (too big) house, but I have real reservations about buying again. I am not at all sure that the Toledo area will hold its value, either now or (especially) in the long term. And I'm including ring suburbs, too.

Big part of me thinks renting might actually be the more prudent way to go, while putting proceeds of house sale into another instrument with greater prospects for appreciation.

Thoughts?

Oh, and to answer the original question -- Our county-assigned valuation dropped $10K.

Mine dropped 9%. Although two houses sold in our neighborhood (both under 30 days and both around $185K), I think they got lucky and do not know if the trend would hold. So for now , I stay put.

I have little confidence in real estate values in this region. My home (in Point Place for reference) value is down more than 30% from 5 years ago. Yes, I realize those 2007 values were unrealistic and reflected the housing bubble but at the time, those were the numbers we had to work with.

I see nothing on the horizon that gives me any confidence of value appreciation. We've adjusted our retirement plan to reflect receiving much less for our home when the time comes which means we'll have to put much more cash into the retirement condo -wherever that may be - it certainly will not be in this area.

The down side of renting is that while property values have dropped dramatically, rents have not. You'd need to run the numbers to see if you would come out ahead by selling/investing/renting vs. staying put - especially if your castle is paid for.

Got mine yesterday and it dropped 24%, from $120K to $91K. I could probably get around $125K for it now, which sucks since we bought in 2006 for $156K, but there is some solace that we got out of our old house in the Douglas/Sylvania area. We sold it for $106K in 2006. Last year, it sold again for $35k. Ouch.

Foodie, my daughter is trying to sell a house in PP and just came down on the price 30k from what she paid 5 years ago. Not sure what their tax re-evaluation was, I think they lowered the price just to try to get it to sell. They got underwater on a second mortgage due to job loss. dumb kids. :(

We just lost $20k+ on our home..and our mortgage is now under water.....right as we wanted to refinance.

Can we even refinance to a better rate with out mortgage under? :(

Note: I am refer to underwater in the sense that the mortgage is worth more than the home....we are current on our payments.

OhioKimono, I'm being told by the Lucas County Auditor and by other entities that porperty tax valuations should have nothing to do with appraisal values. I'm cynical by nature, but based upon how my HELOC lender came up with a value for my home, I'm inclined to believe it.

I went back over my notes, and see that I actually wrote down "They don't use tax value as it's not the same thing."

So I'm going to ease up a little bit on my worrying.

I've always been of the opinion that if you're going to live somewhere long-term, buy something rather than rent. But that doesn't translate into "buy anything" ; you have to find the right deal.

If you view your home as an investment that needs to appreciate, you may have to wait 10 years+ for that to happen around here. Maybe renting is better for you if that's your mindset...then throw your money into a growth vehicle (wherever those are!).

However, if it's going to be your home, it's going to be your home for a long time, and you're looking not to get burned by prices collapsing....well, how much lower can home prices get? Between value and mortgage rates...someday we'll be looking back at this time and saying "if I only bought something back then" (it'll happen).

Look at Ace Face's comment--the house he sold for $106K just sold for $35K. Bad news for that owner after Ace, but hell, what if you find a little (or big) gem at a great price in a nice area and just live in the thing until the market comes up again? Between a decent interest rate and people begging (almost literally) for you to buy their house and (partially) get 'em the hell out of the mess they're in, if you have the assets...I'd buy. Hell, a $100,000 house at 4.0% is less than a $500 payment per month.

Wanna go smaller? Well, the Blade is always using a "$60,000 house" to reference how much all these levies are going to cost us. Same math: $60,000 house at 4.0% is a (raw--no taxes) $286.44 payment. Wow.

Anyhow, I like buying, but that's me. But only if you're in the area for the long term. And I wouldn't buy in the city of Toledo.

Well, you don't actually incure the hypothetical loss until you try to sell. When you bring a check for $20,000 to the closing table to SELL your house, that's when the loss occurs. As far as refinance, for conventional, you are in a hard place. There are two possibly helpful things that come to mind: one is a program in place (at least it was when I refinanced recently) from the feds that force banks to refinance at 125% of appraised value, due to the exact circumstance that you are in. The other is a reset clause that some mortgages had. I got into a 7 year balloon note in 2003 on one of my homes that would have put me in a crunch if not for a reset clause. The bank (in 2003) essentially provided a clause that they would reset the mortgage as a 30 year fixed at the prime plus something, as long as I was up to date on payments. The fees were minimal and I moved into a 4.25% loan because they were bound by the 2003 contract. If not for the reset clause, I would have been scrambling. When I got the 7 year note, I only intended to stay a couple of years, and of course, I didn't forecast a complete collapse of the housing market.

"Incure."
Freudian?

Kimono, I wouldn't use the county value as the determiner on what your house is worth. Like I mentioned above, my reval just came in at $91K. But we refinanced a couple of months ago to get out of the 6.875% loan we were in. We were able to refi at 4.75% because our appraisal came in at $141K. I was shocked as that is way higher than what it could sell for right now, but it got me a shorter loan at much more favorable terms. Even if you are underwater, you might qualify for the HAMP or HARP programs. I'd look into it.

Just an FYI for some people reading this thread who were curious because they had not received their Re-Evaluation notice. I called the Lucas County Auditor's office today and they said my evaluation was set to go out on July 16. I live in the 43613 zone. So they are still mailing them.

You can check for your eval online, too:
http://gisapps.co.lucas.oh.us/apps/informalapp/

Nana, that doesn't surprise me at all. Homes in our neighborhood have sold for $30 - 50k less than they sold for in 2006. Home across the street from us just sold. Was on the market for about a year. I'll be very curious to learn the sale price.

As long as the neighborhood holds, we plan on living in our current home until we retire in 10 to 15 years. And, our home is paid for. So, today's market value is not too big of a concern. As justread mentioned, you don't realize the loss or gain until you sell it. God only knows what it will be worth in 10 to 15 years but we're assuming it won't be any higher than today and planning accordingly.

Our 2012 valuation actually held steady but, back in 2009, we contested the taxable value, backed it up with recent comparable sales and got it lowered. Then, the county lowered it even further when they did the 2009 valuation.

Foodie look it up on ARIES, the selling prices should be listed, well maybe, not sure how fast that is updated.

Already tried that but it apparently hasn't closed yet as the prior (deceased) owner is still listed.

I understand everyone's pain in the Toledo market...Things won't turn around until the glut of open properties out there finally dwindles - either by burning down or being torn down. I've had my house on sale for 15 months and only 4 people go through it. Bought it for $115k in 2006 and have it on sale for $89,900 in West Toledo...and have a loan still out on it for $80k. Can't refi because it's for sale...go figure.

We will be out of our house by October at the latest but luckily we have someone who is interested in renting it for a decent price in September...

Hey, at least building houses continues to hold the line in pricing...all newer houses around me have pricing higher then mine for the same square footage :)

-Av

Foodie, have you tried looking in Toledo Legal News?

Yep. Not there either. I do find that the county updates AREIS pretty quickly after closing.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

My closing on June 28 was in the Areis system by the time I got home. It was mind-blowing! LOL!

Just got my notice of change in value today. In 2008 we challenged our property tax and it was reduced by 30%. Today's notice with change in value brings it down another 17%. So, in 4 years our property value has gone from $124,000 down to $71,800 - a $52,200 loss.

I did some quick research and determined if I would have put $124,000 in a Vanguard Total US Market index fund on Jan 1st of 2008 it would now be worth $131,912 - a gain of $7,912. For what it's worth anyways...

Sounds like you shouldn't have challenged the value.

I bought mine in 2002 for $91K got my notice in the mail today and they valued it at $56.7K. Would love to move out of this hell hole of a town, but that aint happening anytime soon. At least I'll be paying less taxes.

Just got back from the in-person meeting with the Auditor's office for Monclova. I scheduled an appointment yesterday for tonight.

Quick and painless... in and out within 20 minutes. They wanted a 15% increase... after talking with them and giving them data, ended up with less than a 1% increase.

The staff was very nice.

It's a catch 22 slowsol. When real estate agents are telling you that you absolutely can't get what your appraised value is because houses next door are selling for 40k less you have to access if it makes sense to keep paying more each half on an inane inflated value or pay tax on a lower amount that is closer to what you will eventually sell the house for. What we are now paying tax on is closer to sell price reality.

I have a hard time believing that they actually look at the attributes when calculating the new values. Since our last revaluation, we have added a 200 sq ft deck, a concrete driveway (used to be stone) and a 400 sq ft garage. Despite all that, the county reduced the full value from $56k to $47k. On top of all that, our three closest neighbors all have prior values between $70k and $95k and only one of them has the same attributes as our home. It will be interesting to see what their revalues look like.

If I was in the process of trying to sell, I would be livid. Since we are stuck here for a time no matter what the housing market does, I am looking at the tiny silver lining which is the lower tax values. This is in Washington Local School District (43613).

My property dropped $15,000 in value, according to the reassessment. If it drops much more, I'll be underwater.

As some noted, this is much ado about nothing. I am underwater on my home, but don't really care as I don't plan on moving. I welcome the lower evaluation as I am looking forward to a lower tax bill.

I also don't view my home as an investment. To me, that is a classic mistake.

I understand what you're saying, Dappling2. I don't plan on moving, either. And I don't really view my home as an investment, as such. I also don't decorate or add on for future buyers: I have bold colors on my walls, etc. because I like it and I live here.

In my case, however, even though my mortgage was paid off quite a while ago, I did get a home equity line of credit to make some necessary improvements to the place. I can't speak for anyone else here, of course, but I worry that the bank holding my line of credit will look at the new valuation and say "Hmmm... We gave you a line of credit based upon $x. It's now worth way less than that. Let's make her pay back the difference in a lump sum."

For those of you with lines of credit, read the fine print. I did. It's there.

Read your contract carefully to see. My guess would be no, home values go lower so seldom that it is probally not in the contract. Mine went down 35% even though we are not in Toledo. I expect a $900 savings on the taxes, so i am happy. I have studied tax home values for many years and they are never acurate.

gamegirl - as I posted earlier, that's a common clause in a home equity contract. My latest outrage is that the bank with whom I have a home equity (zero balance),5/3, called within the last week and encouraged me to borrow on it by offering a very low rate of interest.

How thoughtful!

Considerng that here is also a clause in mine that if the valuation drops below the loan amount any balance due becomes payable in full immediately or they foreclose!

In an article in the Blade today Lucas County Auditor Anita Lopez says Lucas County properties lost on average 14% of their worth (that's us folks). She goes on further to say that “Clearly we knew this was one of the worst times in our history in our county, and clearly it shows that in these numbers.”

My question is... - Where did all the money go when times were good? When property values skyrocketed like the stock market on unsubstantiated exuberance and tax payers were paying much higher rates?

This really helps me understand why some in politics stand firmly against raising taxes for successful people who earn a high wage. It is not a question of "if they can afford it" but a pure recognition that they deserve to have the same scrutiny that we have in regards to how their money is spent or wasted. We can't say "Hey, we don't want the Government wasting all of our money but go over there to that guy who is making a good wage and shake him down real good!"

http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2012/07/26/Toledo-to-lose-1-9-million-because-of-property-value-drop.html

A+ on the conflating property value fluctuations with wealth classes and "rates". There is no logic in that argument at all.

"Property values skyrocketed and taxpayers were paying much higher rates"? What rates?

Have the "rates", whatever they are, gone down? I missed that.

My point is that the amount of property tax I was paying 2006 and 2007 based off of property values at that time that were high. Many homeowners in the city were paying higher property tax during that period. Much like the stock market property values fluctuate and this period was unusually high. The greatest benefactor at that time would have been the city and city services who were taking in tax collections based on higher values. Did they spend that money wisely or were they, even then, complaining that they "needed more?" You guessed it - then than they "needed more."

Back than they were still complaining about funding. They always will. No matter what amount of taxes are collected they will always ask for more.

Sorry if this is confusing but it all comes back to the point that we all deserve to have the money we pay in taxes spent wisely - whether we are rich or poor and especially in good and bad times.

The levies on the ballot this year could effectively end up resulting in home owners in this city paying more in taxes than they did previously despite their owner personal stake in the properties being reduces by another 14%. "We know YOU are all getting poorer but were going to keep taking the same bite out of your butts." The homeowners keep getting poorer but the city still wants more.

If all of these levies pass right now when home values are on the lower end and the homeowner see's no reduction in their taxes than they will suffer a double whammo by also taking a more substantial increase IF values ever come back up.

It all ties together.

And what's that got to do with raising the income tax rate on top wage earners?

BTW the Lucas County Auditor has projected that the City will lose $2m annually based on the reduction in home values. They also explained that the City's reliance on property tax revenues is small. I think they said 4 mills. Whatever levies your talking about must be County levies not City of Toledo levies. The City of Toledo relies on income taxes, not property tax revenue.

Simply that all tax revenue should be spent wisely in good times and bad. City, State, Federal, property, all of them... It is as important to be frugal and lean during good times as it is in downturns.

Additionally, it is unfair for the middle class (which I am) to demand fair taxation and value for themselves but shift their burden on another class (top wage earners) as a solution to their problem and then resent that top wage earners do not want further burden without serious fiscal responsibility taking place.

I submitted a re-evaluation about 18 months ago and received the adjusted valuation I submitted. It seems to have slipped my mind, but it was around a 30-35% reduction. The Auditor's office fully granted my request.

If you live within the city of Toledo and your house was only reduced by 10-15%, it's likely you still are paying extra taxes.

Our came last week, and our value went up by almost $20k. We bought our house about a year and a half ago and after purchasing got the tax value lowered to our purchase price. Here's my question... If there's a chance we might try selling in the next couple of years, should I leave the tax value as it is, or would it still be worth disputing to get it back down to our purchase price? Obviously having it lower means lower taxes, but I'm not sure whether it would help us to have it be a higher value if we decided to sell.