Thank you for giving me the opportunity to clear the air.
With the ability of more people to work from home, our county has seen in influx of new developments and increased sales prices for our real property that was sold/purchased over the last year. This data accounted for roughly a 22% increase in market values from January 1, 2022 to January 1, 2023. The biggest drive of this was in land values of smaller tracts.
We do operate in Mass Appraisal, meaning that we use the systematic appraisal of groups of properties using standardized procedures and statistical analysis. Unlike a Fee Appraisal that most property owners are more commonly familiar with that looks at that individual property and makes specific adjustments. The Protest Time is an essential step in Mass Appraisal as to give us an opportunity to review individual properties and rectify any issues that may be specific to that property. I encourage all property owners that feel that their value is high, to file a protest and provide any information that would affect their property’s value. Our goal is to be accurate, not high or low as the State Comptroller’s office does come in every other year to perform a Property Value Study ensuing that the CAD is within a 5% margin of error from 100% of market value.
I understand that there has been some concern voiced regarding my personal property. So, lets take a look at it. Late last year, I was given the opportunity to purchase 5 acres of a 52 acre tract that adjoins my home property of 10 acres. Wanting to secure the land surrounding my home, we jumped on the opportunity. The 52 acres was comprised of two parcels. The smaller of the two parcels was resurveyed and split leaving my 5 acre parcel as the account that retained the historical data from the original 12.03 acres prior to the split. This erroneously made the account look like it went down in value; however, if you see the below illustration, you will see that the price per acre on R10865 actually increased 82.7% due to economies of scale and market increase year over year.
So, lets talk about economies of scale a minute. Typically smaller acreage sells for a greater price per acre than a larger tract. Think of when you go to the grocery store and purchase a 4 pack of toilet paper. You will pay more per roll when buying a smaller package than if you went to Sam’s Club or Costco and purchased a huge package of many rolls. This same principle applies to land sales as well. When we purchased the 5 acres, this increased the size bracket of our original tract of 10 acres to 15 acres. This less per acreage value is reflective of the slight decrease in my land value on R104064.
I should also point out that my home is a metal residence and is valued as such, this construction type has shown a less increase in market value than a typical brick or wood frame home. This is driven by sales and cost to construct.
Transparency is extremely important to me and I encourage anyone that has any questions to reach out to me and I will gladly answer any questions that they have.
