Hello

Comment on average property tax rate.

Mark Janes here resident 408 Oak tree road, I lived in Howell for 3 years now and after going over my finances I learned I am paying taxes on a township assessed value of $360,000 while 3 years ago i purchased the property for $220,000. Recently got divorced and refinanced my property. The bank appraisor like before valued the property at $220,000.
I feel like something is wrong here. Doesn't the tax assesors office see this discrepancy.?
After talking to my neighbors everyone seems to be in the same situation.
This seems dishonest to me.
I pay nearly $9000 a year in property taxes when really I should be paying $6000 a year .
During all of Gov Christie's property tax reduction i never herd of any township being accused of over charging people on property tax.
Being a new subsriber to Howell patch you my have had this issue brought up by another residient.
If not can you tell me what I should do to have this investigated.

Thanks

Mark P Janes
408 Oak Tree Rd
Freehold, N.J
07728

PS this really confusing that i physically reside in Howell but my address says I live in Freehold . Won't it benefit the residients to rezone the zip code?.

Mark, as I'm sure you're aware, Howell has an appraisal appeal process. Of course, having gotten an independent appraisal will certainly help, but you also need comparable sales.

Good luck!

first go to Freehold Hall of Records and get the application to appeal your property assessment you can do it yourself . It has instructions.

You'll need 'comparable sales ' aka 'comps'

you can search for comparable sales online at DataUniverse at
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=DATA

or you can go to the township tax office to look up recent sales.

or you can pay a real estate agent to look up recent comps for you

or you can hire a real estate appraiser

or you can hire a lawyer who specializes in property tax appeals

There's nothing in Howell that justifies my $9,000 a year property taxes. Howell wastes more money each year on basically worthless projects like parks that are rarely used, but even more important to this subject is the unfairness of the current way to assess property taxes based on nothing more than a guess

Appraisers literally guess at what a property will sell for at the time of the appraisal. More often than not, they're wrong

People pay what they pay for a property based on a few reasons

1 is they see the assessed value and think it is correct

2 others pay the asking price because they think that the price a realtor placed on it is correct

3 a savvy buyer will ignore both and offer only what he can afford

the truth is none of the above or of the many other reasons people pay what they do are even remotely accurate

Around 1994 Howell reassessed property. Soon after I checked a MLS book to see how accurate the appraisals were. I found a difference in sale prices vs appraised values to be off by as much as 175% . Modest Homes mostly sold for less than assessed value, while larger homes almost always sold for far more and commercial properties were all over the place.

part 2.
I should mention I became a licensed real estate agent in 1994 and a licensed appraiser in 1998.

A small cape on Rte 9 South by Ice Cream on 9 went from paying about $1200 a year to over $12,000 a year. The owner lost the house because the idiot appraiser decided it was a shopping center and not a small house. While property is SUPPOSED to be valued at it's "highest and best use" it was NOT a shopping center. It's highest and best use was a small home with narrow frontage. Others who worked for the appraisal company valued actual commercial property on Rte9 including real shopping centers and motels for far less than the small home. Does that make sense? NO!

Howell and other towns pay hundreds of thousands of tax dollars for mandatory reassessments that are merely guesses

A better idea is to simply tax property on

1... the district it is in,

2...The square footage of the types of buildings on the property

3.... the square footage of the lot with consideration of topography and wetlands etc
no appraisers will be needed as square footage will be on the lot survey and building SF will be on the plans. while this is a simple version of my plan that would take a bit more space than available, it works. No 'authority' on taxes has ever made an argument against it. The owner of the RE Appraiser school I attended said it was no good, but after he read it completely he agreed with it completely.

part 3

Several Governors were given this plan but none had the balls to do anything with it, including Chris Christy

Under my plan no reassessments would ever be needed. No appeals would be necessary because the only mistake could be a math mistake that can be solved immediately by the local tax assessor.

this plan can be phased in with building inspectors noting any problems like wetlands when inspecting property for new building inspections while the building square footage will be on the plans. Once done taxes will be more fair and taxpayers will save money on appeals and reassessments.

Ending Appeals will help everyone. because when some win appeals their taxes go down, but everyone else will have to pay more to make up those reductions
I do not think a persons necessities , food, clothing and shelter should ever be taxed , but while property is , it should be taxed in a much fairer way and no one should ever fear fixing up their home because it may increase their taxes