In our current market, a lot of homeowners in Hampton Roads feel that the city assessment of their home's value is too high. This of course means they could be paying more in property taxes than they should be. Are your property taxes too high? If you think they are, you may be able to get them lowered.
If you noticed the home across the street from you just sold significantly lower than your home's assessed value, call your city's real estate assessors office and tell them your property may be assessed too high. They may have a city appraiser come out to your home and inspect your property to see if the assessment is accurate. They will then decide whether or not it should be reduced.
If they still feel that the assessment is correct, you may be able to hire an independent certified appraiser to appraise your home. If the appraisal is lower than the assessed value, you can present the appraisal to the city real estate assessors office as evidence your assessment is too high. You should check with your city's real estate assessors office first to make sure that they will consider the independent appraisal. You don't want to pay for an appraisal that you can't use.
If you do end up having an appraiser appraise your property, keep in mind real estate appraisers have ethical standards to abide by and cannot serve as an advocate for you. An appraiser must be unbiased and cannot guarantee the results of the appraisal or even know beforehand which way it is going to go. Also, find out how your city determines the amount of taxes you pay to make sure the cost of the appraisal will be worth the savings.
If you need an appraisal on your home to challenge the city's assessed value, call me at (757) 647-6485.
Jeff Ward Certified Residential Real Estate Appraiser