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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tommaso who wrote (56190)	6/18/2006 9:31:20 AM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

I do whatever I can to REDUCE the quoted value of my house--and by so doing have saved myself thousands of dollars in taxes. No one uses the tax assessment to decide what a property should sell for but there are certainly jurisdictions that use the sale price to determine the tax assessment. Maryland uses a combination of market value (on the land portion) and replacement cost/depreciation on the improvements. Having an old house works to your advantage because they depreciate the structure and give it a lower value even if your house would sell for the exact amount of a new one with similar features right next to it. Fixing it up doesn't even effect the tax status unless you add square footage, bedrooms or bathrooms. My tax assessment is a fraction of what I could sell my house for tomorrow. It's not worth the effort to get it lower because it is already very low in comparison to other similar properties in other taxing districts. My property taxes have simply risen at the official rate of inflation (CPI) over the last 12 years I've owned this property. If I plug the tax for 1994 into a CPI calculator it pumps out a slightly higher figure for 2006 than what I'm charged but it is remarkably close. Amazingly enough the same is true for my home owner's insurance over the same time period.