About 3 years ago I warned the residents of Dekalb County that were pounding on the doors of the county tax accessors office, demanding that their home value assessments be lowered that this would cause a massive erosion of the county tax base. The school funding would be hurt the most. This came to pass - as they focused on their individual interests rather than the best interests of the county and the institutions that they were responsible for.
I am happy to hear that in the face of a "catastrophic fall" in home values in the county - some people realize how their LOCAL taxes are connected to the key "human resource development and sustenance" institutions that they care about the most.
The loss in home values in the county impact the individual home owner as they might be placed "under-water" - owning more on the home mortgage than what the asset is actually worth. It also negatively impacts the county finances. As the tax base declines the ability for the county government to operate their basic services are threatened.
There are fewer ideological difference in the matter of LOCAL taxes because the money spent has a direct and observable benefit to the citizens that pay in. This is where people's prime focus should be on tax matters.
Shock and disbelief greeted Colin Heydt when he opened DeKalb County’s tax assessment notice on his Candler Park home. Across the county in Stone Mountain, Jan Dunaway had the same reaction.
Unlike residents in Gwinnett or Fulton, who have flooded their counties with appeals for lower assessments, many DeKalb property owners insist their home values are far too low.
In order to maintain services, such as police and libraries, residents say they’d prefer to see higher home assessments -- which means higher taxes regardless of rate -- instead of what they think are unrealistically low assessments. The drop in home values has the county thinking of raising taxes up to 4.5 mills, which would increase taxes about $93 a year on the average home, which this year is assessed at $155,700.
“If you are going to take one of the better off neighborhoods and give people 60 percent off their taxes for no apparent reason, something is dramatically wrong,” Heydt, a philosophy professor whose four-bedroom home, with a separate carriage house, plunged 57 percent from an assessment of $440,700 to $189,960.
“I’d be happy to pay more in taxes than what I’m currently scheduled to, because it’s only fair,” Heydt added. “Without an adjustment, you’re talking about the potential for millions of dollars in lost revenue.”
DeKalb’s chief appraiser Calvin Hicks couldn’t believe his ears when calls complaining about values too low started coming in. He defended the county’s assessments but admits the numbers could be off in some areas, including the Candler Park neighborhood.
“It’s as accurate as we can make it, given the confines we’re working with,” Hicks said. “Really, it’s been an unusual year.”
He attributes the plunging values mostly to a new state law that requires distressed sales be included when calculating the market value. Because DeKalb has the third highest number of foreclosures in the state — with 7,645 foreclosures announced between January and May — those sales are pushing down values countywide.
The resulting 13 percent drop in value, down to $20.8 billion, is the worst among metro Atlanta counties. The drop is felt more acutely by homeowners because DeKalb is 65 percent residential and lacks the industrial and commercial properties that have helped prop up values in neighboring Fulton and Gwinnett counties.
Gwinnett, for instance, saw a decline of about 9 percent to its digest while Cobb county’s values fell about 7 percent. Reports show Fulton County may be estimating a decrease of about 8 percent, though official figures were not available.
Compounding the problem was the loss of six experienced appraisers last year to better paying jobs in Fulton, Hicks said. Those workers, who have not been replaced, had the institutional knowledge to question whether a 60 or 70 percent drop really reflected the neighborhoods.
“We’re human,” Hicks said. “If we made an error, we will review that and correct it.”
So far, his office has agreed to re-examine five neighborhoods where property owners think the values are depressed, including parts of Candler Park, areas in and around Avondale Estates and North Druid Hills. If more calls come in, Hicks said his office will review those complaints, too.
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