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Property Tax Increase

spierceisu said:
I just got a letter that the assessed value of my house went up $38,000 dollars from last year! I live in Waukee and my taxes are already high. I would try to dispute this, but I finished my basement a few years ago and the assessor doesn't know it is finished so my value would go even higher. I am not suprised my value went up, but that is a huge increase. Has anyone else noticed their taxes going up so much?
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What percent was that increase? You are living in a boom town.
 
spierceisu said:
I just got a letter that the assessed value of my house went up $38,000 dollars from last year! I live in Waukee and my taxes are already high. I would try to dispute this, but I finished my basement a few years ago and the assessor doesn't know it is finished so my value would go even higher. I am not suprised my value went up, but that is a huge increase. Has anyone else noticed their taxes going up so much?
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-you have a home assessed at $100,000.00
-the State of Iowa Issues rollbacks, rollbacks are the actual percentage of that $100.000.00 that you can be taxed on. How they determine yearly rollback percentages, I dont know.
So assessed value going up could in theory drop your taxable value with a big rollback, but not very likely.
-Agland, Ag property, Industrial Residential and Multi Residential (over 4 units in one building) these are the main categories that are taxed and collected at the County level.
-The state issues rollbacks for all of these categories. Multi Res is being slowly lowered in taxable value until it eventually matches the same percentage of rollback as residential property.
-The value of agland is determined by a profitability formula that I have heard is very complex, it is not 100% what the land is worth, it is the profitability of that dirt and a bit of the value mixed in. We are an Ag State.
So every December 31st 2 year old taxable valuations are calculated at the County level. This last December 31st it was 2017 100% valuations were "rolled back" to calculate your TAXABLE VALUE of what you own.
-LOOK at your tax statement in August it will detail who is getting your tax dollars.
-Dont get hung up om assessed value alone
-It is you responsibility to make sure you correct any mistakes are made
LOOK at your tax statement in August. Pay attention to who is getting the money you pay.

There are many more caveats to determining your value and what and who pays taxes. It isn't a pure actual value times the levy rate per $1000.00 of valuation. The State level has messed with this over many many years to a convoluted system for political reasons.

I dont think its broken, it is just harder to administer than it needs to be.
--One more thing look at the dollars not the value of the property or the levy rate. What dollars are being collected more or less. If your taxable value goes up your dollars may stay the same and your levy rate go down. Or your levy may go up because your value went down but you pay the same dollars.
 
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spierceisu said:
I just got a letter that the assessed value of my house went up $38,000 dollars from last year! I live in Waukee and my taxes are already high. I would try to dispute this, but I finished my basement a few years ago and the assessor doesn't know it is finished so my value would go even higher. I am not suprised my value went up, but that is a huge increase. Has anyone else noticed their taxes going up so much?
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Out here in the hinterlands you can request a reevaluation and likely prevail. Doesn't include an inspection of any kind. It MIGHT be like a traffic ticket where you can appeal and get a reduced fine (unless they find the dead hooker in the trunk).
 
IceCyIce said:
Property tax in Grimes is, Like Kurt Russell said in Used Cars "Too Fing Highhh". There are people that want to sell their house and can't cause the taxes are 10-11K a year
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That's no joke, there is a legit group of home prices and areas that not only does it push buyers away based on what they can afford but also a group of buyers that just say even if we can afford that I'm not doing it. We are moving spring next year and taxes will be the biggest issue considering it really long term will be my lost home and paying off the home only to pay 9-10k a year in taxes is insane.
 
chadly82 said:
That's no joke, there is a legit group of home prices and areas that not only does it push buyers away based on what they can afford but also a group of buyers that just say even if we can afford that I'm not doing it. We are moving spring next year and taxes will be the biggest issue considering it really long term will be my lost home and paying off the home only to pay 9-10k a year in taxes is insane.
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We are looking at moving right now and have several options for small towns, larger town, or rural areas near the towns. You can bet your a** that the tax rates are a part of the discussion. Not only does the tax rate directly affect the bottom line but higher rates also choke off growth in a town only exacerbating the issues long term.
 
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ArgentCy said:
We are looking at moving right now and have several options for small towns, larger town, or rural areas near the towns. You can bet your a** that the tax rates are a part of the discussion. Not only does the tax rate directly affect the bottom line but higher rates also choke off growth in a town only exacerbating the issues long term.
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Exactly, if you have a $150,000 house its still gotten out of hand. We are looking around $325000 and the taxes already are more than I want to pay let alone what they could look like in 2 or 3 years. Just flat out something you have to consider if for some reason there is ever any financial areas that change.
 
chadly82 said:
Exactly, if you have a $150,000 house its still gotten out of hand. We are looking around $325000 and the taxes already are more than I want to pay let alone what they could look like in 2 or 3 years. Just flat out something you have to consider if for some reason there is ever any financial areas that change.
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It has directly harmed the high value houses in the area. I have a decent job, especially for the area, and I can't afford the taxes to buy the nicest houses in the area. And those are only in the $300,000. There are almost no $400,000 houses because those often have taxes that are $10,000 / year+. The only people that can afford that are a few lawyers, doctors, and medium size business owners.
 
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ArgentCy said:
It has directly harmed the high value houses in the area. I have a decent job, especially for the area, and I can't afford the taxes to buy the nicest houses in the area. And those are only in the $300,000. There are almost no $400,000 houses because those often have taxes that are $10,000 / year+. The only people that can afford that are a few lawyers, doctors, and medium size business owners.
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Absolutely, my wife and I both have good incomes but if you have a couple kids but want a home to put them in there is a certain price range right now that's appropriate for that if you're paying daycare etc too. The property taxes alone make you say "ok looks like we'll do some updating down the road instead and take the sq ft that does the job"
 
83cy said:
Nothing is free! The money has to come from somewhere.
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Or just used appropriately, its funny because the pot holes turning on the road to my rental property are absolutely ridiculous. The property taxes have gone up 60/mo over the last 2 years and guess what the property taxes are supposed to be used for....
 
chadly82 said:
Or just used appropriately, its funny because the pot holes turning on the road to my rental property are absolutely ridiculous. The property taxes have gone up 60/mo over the last 2 years and guess what the property taxes are supposed to be used for....
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This small town I live in has some major street issues. They did a massive street rebuild for one several years ago. The wise city council had declared there would be this plan set forth (street assessments were about 10k per lot for this, and this was a street with some lower end housing and a couple houses were sold because the owners couldn't handle it) to get the streets totally redone. Every seven years they would do this total rebuild on a street. Some basic math says that it will take 150 years or so to get all the streets handled. So it comes down to like a lottery system if you will get your street fixed and get drilled with a 10k assessment to have it.

BTW, it has been about 10 years since the first street now, so they have already fallen behind. Even with them jacking up taxes, asking for a new levy that was passed and the assessments increasing every year.
 
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BCClone said:
This small town I live in has some major street issues. They did a massive street rebuild for one several years ago. The wise city council had declared there would be this plan set forth (street assessments were about 10k per lot for this, and this was a street with some lower end housing and a couple houses were sold because the owners couldn't handle it) to get the streets totally redone. Every seven years they would do this total rebuild on a street. Some basic math says that it will take 150 years or so to get all the streets handled. So it comes down to like a lottery system if you will get your street fixed and get drilled with a 10k assessment to have it.

BTW, it has been about 10 years since the first street now, so they have already fallen behind. Even with them jacking up taxes, asking for a new levy that was passed and the assessments increasing every year.
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Crazy how much money they piss away that they are stealing from homeowners let alone those that are not. If they would just use the money for what its meant for we'd be fine. Most people have to be on a budget but elected officials using other peoples money....don't have to be.
 
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BCClone said:
This small town I live in has some major street issues. They did a massive street rebuild for one several years ago. The wise city council had declared there would be this plan set forth (street assessments were about 10k per lot for this, and this was a street with some lower end housing and a couple houses were sold because the owners couldn't handle it) to get the streets totally redone. Every seven years they would do this total rebuild on a street. Some basic math says that it will take 150 years or so to get all the streets handled. So it comes down to like a lottery system if you will get your street fixed and get drilled with a 10k assessment to have it.

BTW, it has been about 10 years since the first street now, so they have already fallen behind. Even with them jacking up taxes, asking for a new levy that was passed and the assessments increasing every year.
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Ooofff, a 10k special assessment? Lol. Driving around town here I can imagine that would make many streets miniature ghost towns. Lots of streets where most of the houses are only $30k on average and the nice ones are $60k.
 
ArgentCy said:
Ooofff, a 10k special assessment? Lol. Driving around town here I can imagine that would make many streets miniature ghost towns. Lots of streets where most of the houses are only $30k on average and the nice ones are $60k.
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Our church had a whole block of it. Around 35k we had to come up with. There are around 3-4 houses per block so I just did a rough math number. You could term it out over 7 to 10 years or something, but it is still a hit.

One big help was this streets storm sewer system was bad and a lot of the water was shoved into the city sanitation system. The helped alleviate a lot of problems with this. A couple years before, they tore up a good stretch of the city sewer system and enlarged the trunk system. Still had a few problems after but the new street cleared any other issue up. I asked the council why they didn't just take that money on an enlarged system and had done another large issue street instead at the time. Figured this would have killed two birds with one stone. I got blank stares and crickets.
 
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