Month: February 2015

This is a real estate post. I’m a real estate agent by the way) Questions? ask me … 434-242-7140. 

Pulling assessed values in Crozet is tough. Across Albemarle County, assessed values are up 2.64%; White Hall is up 2.94%.

Last year, Parkside Village had the highest percentage increase; this year, Old Trail and Western Ridge are leading the way.

One note: with respect to fair market value, my opinion is that an assessment has about as much validity as does a zestimate.

In my opinion, county assessed values are good for one thing – top-level trending information. As I wrote a few years ago:

Assessments are not a reflection of market value. They are a backward-looking assessment of what the market value may have been at the time the assessor looked at the house (most likely online, and not in person). The assessor may or may not know the condition of the property, the condition of the property’s neighbors, may not consider the traffic noise, crime stats, proximity of sexual offenders, level of inventory, smell of the neighborhood, etc. etc. etc. Assessments are why you pay taxes on.

The Daily Progress notes this year:

The current rate is 79.9 cents per $100 of assessed value. At that rate and including an assessment increase of 2.64 percent, the annual tax bill would edge up $63 to $2,460 on a home previously assessed at $300,000. The new assessments will be reflected in tax bills to be mailed in late April.

It costs nearly $12k to educate a student in Albemarle County schools; think about that for a minute when thinking about the new homes – and residents in the County.

I pulled data from the Albemarle County GIS site for the following neighborhoods:

• Grayrock Orchard
• Grayrock North
• Bargamin Park – attached and detached
• Waylands Grant – attached and detached
• Western Ridge
• Highlands (which includes Rockbridge)  – attached and detached
• Old Trail – see note #3
• Wickham Pond – attached and detached
• Laurel Hills
• Parkside Village – attached and detached

A few notes:

1. Please. Please review the source data. And correct me.
2. Source Data is here.
3. Old Trail is inclusive of all homes – newer attached, older attached, big homes on half acre lots, smaller homes on tiny lots, villas near the golf course … it’s a massive neighborhood.
4. The data is free; I did spend a bit of money having someone pull it all down and run the spreadsheets
5. I removed outliers – the Lodge in Old Trail, for example, is valued at about $18 million – that would have messed stuff up. I also pulled new construction this year that was valued for say, $500k this year, when it was valued for $0 last year.
6. New construction matters; the neighborhoods with the greatest increases had significant amounts of newer homes (even the few newer ones in Western Ridge – the part that feels like Foothills – impacted the numbers).
7. Thinking about challenging your assessment? The form must be received by the County by 28 February.

Albemarle County real estate assessments are out … did yours go up? Go down? Questions about your assessment? Ask me …(434-242-7140. I’m a real estate agent by the way).