Fighting the system

November 20th, 2007 at 07:43am Alex Gary

I occasionally get calls from people upset with their home assessment. I will finally get a chance to see the process all the way through.

I’ve been a homeowner in Winnebago County for 12 years. Four years ago Rockford Township’s assessors tried to raise the fair market value of our house from $97,000 to $116,000 even though we hadn’t done any improvements to the property. We live in Snow’s Landing, the first subdivision platted in the Loves Park area. I went down to the township office, paid for reports of some comparable properties and challenged the assessments. I won.

Now since, we added a two-car garage to the property so when the township assessor last year wanted to increase the fair market value to $118,000 we didn’t complain.

This year, though, the assessor believes the house has a value of more than $130,000.

If you regularly read my stories, you know I love statistics. We keep a database of real estate transactions here at the RRS so it was easy to look up every home sale since 2005 in my neighborhood. It showed there have just been two home sales in my area above $118,000 and one of those was in 2006 when the housing market was at its hottest.

I thought that would do it, but the Winnebago County Board of Review didn’t agree. The board upheld the assessment.

Now I get to see the next step. I’m requesting a hearing where I can present additional evidence. I haven’t collected the data yet but the Rockford Area Association of Realtors tracks sale prices by grid. I remember in 2006 the grid I live in was one of a dozen or so that actually had average sale prices decline. With prices essentially flat overall and down among existing houses in 2007, it’s fair to assume if anything home values are declining again in my neighborhood. I’m going to channel my inner Ross Perot and will present a graph of average price in my area versus the percentage increases in my assessment.

If board of review members are out there, you have been warned.

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