St. Louis Real Estate Tax - higher tax bills might be coming!

St. Louis Real Estate tax assessors must have rose colored glasses!

“Higher tax bills might be coming. . . Under a complicated valuation scheme, some owners will pay more.” - by Clay Barbour - St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Good Lord, all I was doing was enjoying my bagel and coffee this morning at The St. Louis Bread Co., when I glanced at a discarded newspaper and choked on the headlines. I don’t read the paper often, especially the St. Louis Post Dispatch, however, that headline deserved my attention.

Here are some of the highlights:

• median values of St. Louis County homes increased 22% during the past two years.
• the average median value of a St. Louis County house - as of Jan 1, 2007 - was $162,300

Since I’m both a home owner (taxpayer) and a Realtor, my curiosity really peaked. It peaked enough to send me directly to my computer to jump on the Realtor data base (MARIS) and run some statistics myself. Clay, did you bother to ask them about their data base? or if they have heard about the bubble? or did you just grab their press release and run with it?

Fantasy vs. Reality

Notice the differences in the median values and the % change between the two data bases, pretty strange. . .huh!?
Even stranger if you consider that this article fell in the shadow of an article from Inman News - “Study notes decline in overvalued real estate markets” that carried an interesting chart from National City Corp. Be sure to click on St. Louis on the map and view the historical data. Interesting to note that we are considered “fairly” evaluated at a median value of $144,000. If your into pain click on the methodology link.

For my next assignment I’ll be calling on the TAX MAN to see if I can get clarification on the “complicated tax scheme”.

Appealing your assesment

Property owners can appeal by scheduling a meeting with county assesors. Appointments have to be made no later than April 20 by calling 314-615-5500.

You must have documents showing the county’s value is higher than the property’s market value as of Jan. 1. The documents can include photos, a recent appraisal, a recent sales contract, a closing statement, or an estimate for repairs.

For more information: Go to http://revenue.stlouisco.com/TaxAppeals/Default.aspx

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 20th, 2007 at 11:39 am and is filed under Real Estate News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.