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Friday, June 29, 2012

T&G: Letter to the Editor - Housing assessments don’t make sense

The Telegram & Gazette has been writing about what the city manager and the tax assessor’s office have been saying, that the single-family home valuation has dropped on average 3 percent. Does the T&G want to hear the real story?

I received my parcel information from the assessor’s office, and to my surprise (shock) the value of my single-family home went up 23 percent. When I called the assessor’s office the person I talked to told me he would look into it. He called me back a week later and told me he had a little room to work with, and then told me upfront not to expect the value to be less than last year, because that was not going to happen. They did drop the value down, but it’s still at 10 percent higher. I think they are just picking numbers out of the air and hope most people won’t say anything.

I have talked to a number of people, and they say their property values have all gone up. The house next door to mine sold for $225,000 in 2005. That house is now on the market for $135,000. And my property value has gone up?

When you file for your abatement, who is going to do the review, the assessor’s office?

I don’t trust them, and I can’t see how they can be trusted to be fair. They should prove to us where they got these numbers, not us having to prove they are wrong.

RONALD ROY

Worcester

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's not about where your property was assessed, it's where it is now. Is it worth $135,000? Ultimately, that's all that matters. You'll never win the argument debating how much your neighbor's house is assessed at, or how much yours changed up or down compared to some selected neighbors.