2012 Charlottesville Real Estate Assessments will be release by the end of January. At least this is what Albemarle County told me when I called to get a specific date. There are 2 areas that have the greatest impact on Assessments in our area. The city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County, where Charlottesville is located.
2012 Charlottesville Real Estate Assessment
The City of Charlottesville says that the released assessments are “an estimate of fair market value as of January 1 each year, based on property sales for the previous calendar year” Here is the Charlottesville City Assessor website.
2012 Albemarle County Real Estate Assessment
Albemarle County, who I called a few days ago, states that “The County of Albemarle appraises real estate every year based on fair market value as provided by the Virginia State Code”.
They go on to say that “The appraisal staff in conducting their field appraisal work considers adjacent property sales, condition of property, zoning stipulations, and other miscellaneous factors that could be an influence on the market value of the property” Here is the Albemarle County Real Estate Tax Website.
Charlottesville Home Prices
Charlottesville Market Reports show that sales are slightly increasing year over year, however Median Sales Prices are down in the City of Charlottesville and up slightly in Albemarle County.
There are a lot of factors that are included to get Median prices from our MLS so your actually numbers may not follow these trends. I suspect that 2012 Real Estate Assessments will be, for the most part, flat to slightly down from 2011.
Charlottesville Real Estate Tax Rates
Our real estate tax rates are based on Assessments:
- City of Charlottesville is $.95 per $100 of Assessed value.
- Albemarle County is $.742 per $100 of Assessed value.
Charlottesville Home Buyer
Many Charlottesville Buyers look to Assessments as a means of valuing a home and in many cases this can be a mistake. Using them as a guide can make sense, but since the data is generated at a point in time prior to the January release the information is not timely enough.
Getting a current Market Analyses of a home from your Charlottesville Agent will give you a better idea of a homes true value.
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This is timely amd informative for both prospective buyers and potential sellers – the tax assessed value has become less and less useful when coming up with an estimate of value but many still think that assessed value is similar to appraised value which is not at all the case, especially given the market conditions we’ve experienced over the past three years.
Peg, I feel it is up to the Real Estate professional to fully explain the difference between an Assessment and an Appraisal. So many people fall into this trap.