Comments on DC Home and Condo Prices: District Assessments: Cityline at Tenley

Yes, I have all the dates and several units have ...

2008-05-31T10:48:00.000-04:00

Yes, I have all the dates and several units have been resold since 2005. Tell me how this approach works, maybe I can model it.

Do you have the dates of all the sales at the City...

2008-05-31T09:51:00.000-04:00

Do you have the dates of all the sales at the Cityline? Any of them sell twice? DC may be using a repeat sales index to measure property value changes. They would most likely run one model for SFH and one for condos, since price dynamics are different.

I have no argument with the condo's price other th...

2008-05-09T12:06:00.000-04:00

I have no argument with the condo's price other than to note that the fellow will be selling at a loss if he gets his asking price. More power to him and his real estate agent.

That condo and the Cityline are both about three years old. I seriously doubt, for example, that swapping out the wood floors and putting in higher-end appliances will _significantly_ increase the value of the property, if at all.

As I said at the bottom of my post, one can argue about whether the District's assessment process and methodologies are correct and defensible. I'm not going to get into that.

The key point is the District, which relies on property taxes and sales recordation fees for a portion of its revenue, is forecasting lower assessment values for 2009 and thus, lower property tax revenue. If you read the WaPo, you can already see the impact of this: a $2.5MM cut to the police department's budget.

This is not unique to the District. Vallejo, CA declared bankruptcy the other day specifically because of lower housing sales, which led to lower sales recordation fees, and lower property tax revenue, thanks to falling values.

The District assesses property values on an annual basis so one can assume its assessments are a closer reflection of market realities than other localities.

Interesting blog. You don't take into account what...

2008-05-09T11:06:00.000-04:00

Interesting blog. You don't take into account what reason the owner may have for listing their property at such a high price. Does the city know if the owner has done extensive renovation to the property, thus increasing the value substantially? Of course not! They don't make adjustments for that information because they aren't privy to it. County and city assessments are always lower than what property is really worth.

I don't know. When I looked at the condo I mention...

2008-05-07T17:10:00.000-04:00

I don't know. When I looked at the condo I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I looked at the assessment record for a rowhouse on the same block. Its assessed value had increased. However, I've not done a broader scan to see whether this bears out District-wide.

Interesting point. I do have a question though, i...

2008-05-07T16:15:00.000-04:00

Interesting point. I do have a question though, is this a new trend or something specific only to condos (i.e. not SFH)?

The reason I ask is some counties are much more agressive in assessed value than others. Some counties prefer to knock a percentage off the sales price (and consequently deal with less assessment challenges) than others. Does DC fall into this category and they do it for all properties, or is this something new and they only do it for condos?