We have all been hearing about the 2012 Revaluation. I have overheard all kinds of comments and speculation about what this means to us as homeowners and tax payers. I decided to visit our tax assessor and get some answers to my basic questions on Friday. I am going to summarize to the best of my ability.
The 2012 Revaluation is a "statistical" revaluation of real estate in our town. That means we will not have people visiting our homes.
It does mean that our homes will be re-evaluated and given a new appraised value based on "sold" real estate in our town between October 2011 and October 2012. As we all know, that "sold" real estate has very different market values than it did several years ago. The consequence is that our appraised values and assessments will go down significantly.
You may want to take time this year to review your house type and take a look at "sold" houses in your category. You can do that by going to Town Hall and looking in the notebook of sold houses in Newtown in the assessor's office. The assessments on our homes are based on a formula of 70% of the appraised value, so they will go down dramatically from the current number.
My next question was about effect on property taxes if assessments go down. Here is a simple formula that helped me understand:
The Grand Levy (the town budget) divided by
The Grand List (sum of all taxable property) equals
The Mil Rate.
The size of the budget and the Grand list are the determining factors.
Seller Tip: Stay informed about the "sold" inventory in your town. It will help you understand the current market and property prices.
