6 Responses to “Real Estate Transfers”

1. Administrator says:

   September 27, 2011 at 6:07 pm

   .
   PROPERTY OWNERS CERTAIN TO FACE HIGHER TAX BILLS
   .
   …In June of this year a lawyer said, across Hamilton County, there is likely to be (about) a 7% reduced property value. Even if your assessed value stays the same, you will get (about) a 6 percent dollar tax increase, without a vote of the people. It will automatically go up. It will be included in your next tax bill (after the assessed value is approved).
   …A researcher for the local web site http://www.sycamoretaxpayer.com analyzed the sales of 106 Blue Ash and Montgomery residential houses in the months of October, 2010, April, 2011 and August, 2011. Those homes sold for an average 9.3% less than the property market value (assessed value).
   …On 09/14/2011, Dusty Rhodes published the following information on the auditor’s web site:
   “We are receiving inquiries about the final value process for the reappraisal. We are currently reviewing all the homeowner response forms, and adjusting tentative values where adjustment is warranted based on the information we received from taxpayers. In November the State of Ohio will review our final product, and once approved, values will be set. We expect new values to be posted to our website in late November or early December.”
   …In addition, continued school district deficit spending (spending more than revenue for each of the five forecasted years), was authorized by the Sycamore Board of Education just four months ago.
   …The current school board also approved a plan to build and equip a brand new $2.1 million Board of Education Office Building, by diverting voter approved tax dollars from the school operating fund.
   …The five year forecast calls for extracting even more tax dollars from the community by placing a new 2012 operating levy on the ballot.
   Glenn Welch
   Montgomery resident and taxpayer
2. Administrator says:

   September 27, 2011 at 10:47 am

   09/14/2011

   We are receiving inquiries about the final value process for the reappraisal. We are currently reviewing all the homeowner response forms, and adjusting tentative values where adjustment is warranted based on the information we received from taxpayers. In November the State of Ohio will review our final product, and once approved, values will be set. We expect new values to be posted to our website in late November or early December.

   (Signed) Dusty Rhodes

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   PROPERTY REAPPRAISALS UNDERWAY
   By Dusty Rhodes, County Auditor
   Next year (2011) will see the full state-mandated appraisal of all property in the
   county. This process takes place once every six years with a triennial trending update
   three years into the term. Our office has been working on the 2011 reappraisal since
   2009.
   It is important to understand the critical differences between a “mass appraisal”
   and a “fee appraisal”.
   Our office does a mass appraisal of the approximately 349,000 residential,
   commercial, industrial and exempt parcels in the county. We visit every property, verify
   characteristics and condition for any recent changes, take a street level picture of each
   parcel, and correct and update our information with another visit if needed.
   We also review recent sales information of nearby and similar properties. We
   are required by state law to set values to current market. There is no better indicator of
   the market than a valid arms length sale.
   In addition to our real estate staff we contract with an experienced mass
   appraisal firm to assist us. Our contract with them is for about $6 million. The total cost
   of our mass appraisal runs from $15 to $20 a parcel or slightly more.
   There was a recent criticism of our reappraisal work as being somehow
   inadequate and cursory. While no specific alternative was offered there was some
   suggestion that a more thorough reappraisal should be done, perhaps even to the
   extent of fee appraisals of every property.
   A fee appraisal would involve a more detailed review. including but not limited to,
   visiting each property and doing an interior inspection. It is possible in some cases a
   fee appraisal, while subjective, might be more accurate.
   However, the cost would be way beyond our resources. Considering that
   residential fee appraisals cost an average $300 per parcel that figure alone would put
   the cost at $104,700,000 for the entire county. Commercial/Industrial fee appraisals
   can run into the thousands of dollars on a parcel basis. And that doesn’t include the
   costs of additional staff.
   Is it worth an additional $98,700,000 or more to obtain what might be a
   marginally more accurate reappraisal? Probably not. But the question is purely
   academic because we don’t have an extra $98 million to spend on a project of this
   magnitude.
   The real problem with setting values today is that we are in a fast changing
   market. What might be right today can be wrong tomorrow. That is why there is a
   Board of Revision (BOR) for owners to challenge our values.
   State law requires us to value property as of January 1, 2011 for the tax bills
   mailed in January, 2012. That puts us a year behind the market from the start.
   For all the drawbacks of a system that requires us to set values “as of” a specific
   date, our work has been generally good. We always strive to be better within the
   limitations of our resources.
   In spite of recent criticisms the reality is that never once – in twenty years – has
   the State Tax Commissioner, as the final authority on values, questioned our appraisals
   or required us to make changes after the work was completed. That is the real test of a
   mass reappraisal.
   November 9, 2010
3. Administrator says:

   August 3, 2011 at 1:54 pm

   . Phil..in Las Vegas..is 65, has back problems and would like to retire at the end of the year. There’s just one thing standing in his way: his house. Trigili bought his home three years ago for $350,000. At the time, he thought it was a good deal, because the home originally was priced at $450,000. Now it’s valued at $184,000.
   . Trigili made a large down payment, so he doesn’t owe more on his mortgage than the home is worth. But his plans to sell his home and use the proceeds for retirement income have been placed on indefinite hold.
   . “We’re pretty stuck here,” Trigili says. “Now, I don’t look at retirement at all. I’d like to work as long as I can.”
   . Nearly 32 percent of adults over age 50 say their home has declined substantially in value over the past three years, according to a survey by AARP. Many won’t recover those losses by the time they reach retirement age, say Jay Butler, associate professor of real estate at W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.
   . “Nobody sees rapid appreciation in home values over the next 10 years,” he says. As a result, he adds, “A lot of folks will postpone retirement.”
   . Declining home equity is a problem that not only can force would-be retires to keep working; it can complicate their eventual retirement in a range of ways. Many retirees for example have long counted on the proceeds from the sale of their homes to help fund health-care costs and long-term care expenses that they’ll inevitably face.
   . In 2003, ..Suppell, 51..bought a home and… . Now they owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth, Suppell lost his job as … during the downturn and has been working part-time for two years. The couples have exhausted their savings and no longer expect their home to provide retirement income.
   . “In 10 years, we’ll be lucky to get back to where the value of the house meets the mortgage value.” Supple says.
   . When the couple bought their house, Supple says, conventional wisdom held that buying a home was one of the best ways for middle-class Americans to build wealth.
   . “Now, it seems the paradigm is shifting,” he says. “They‘re saying your home is not an ATM. That’s now what they were saying seven years ago.”
   . “The housing meltdown also has created a dilemma for seniors who are unable to live independently or fear they will need help in the future.
   . Even before the housing boom, proceeds from the sale of a home were a significant source of funding for long-term care. That’s still the case, analysts say, but the decline in home prices has left many seniors with less money to work with.
   . Seniors are learning that if they want to move, they may need to lower their expectations about how much they’ll get out of their homes. Waiting for home prices to recover isn’t an option for many retirees. Most retirement communities won’t accept seniors who can’t live independently, so seniors must move in while they’re in good health. And many seniors go into assisted living because they no longer can care for themselves, Kramer says.
   . A recent survey by the National Association of Home Builders found that 75 percent of Americans still believe a home is the best investment they can make, despite the ups and downs of the housing market.
   . Source: Equity losses delay retirees By Sandra Block USA Today – Excerpts. Published in The Enquirer 8/3/11 A1
4. Administrator says:

   May 29, 2011 at 5:17 pm

   Half decade of falling prices
   Government tax credit programs helped boost prices in some communities last year, but overall sales still took a tumble in most neighborhoods. Since the region’s housing market hit its peak in 2006, median prices in more than half of the neighborhoods tracked here have fallen by double digits. Here’s a quick glance at activity in the 96 neighborhoods where at least 40 sales occurred last year.
   .
   2010 NO. OF SALES
   2010 MEDIAN PRICE
   2009 MEDIAN PRICE
   2006 MEDIAN PRICE
   2006-2010 MEDIAN PRICE CHANGE
   .
   Blue Ash…….. 112, $160,500, $180,500, $220,950,-27.36%
   Montgomery 119, $300,000, $300,450, $370,950 -19.13%
   Loveland …………………………………………………………….. -18.85%
   Indian Hill …………………………………………………………….. -16.04%
   Madeira ……………………………………………………………….. +4.23%

   Source: The Enquirer, May 22, 2011 G2
5. Administrator says:

   March 29, 2011 at 10:16 am

   http://www.wincincy.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/ForeclosureReport2011.pdf

   Montgomery had the highest percentage increase in foreclosures in this region from 2009 to 2010.
   Municipality 2010 Completed Foreclosures 2009 Completed Foreclosures Change % Change
   1 Montgomery 15 7 8 114.29%
   2Fairfax 17 8 9 112.50%
   ………………………………………………….

   Table 2: Hamilton County 2010 Foreclosures as a Percentage of Owner Occupied Units 2000

   Montgomery was 39 of 48 municipalities in the percentage of owner occupied units
   Rank Municipality Owner Occupied Units, 2000 2010 Completed Foreclosures Estimated Foreclosure Rate
   39 Montgomery 3314, 15, 0.45%
6. Administrator says:

   December 19, 2010 at 4:47 pm

   Ohio ranked 10th among the states, with an underwater rate of 20 percent. (“Underwater” refers to homes worth less than the debt owned on them). Kentucky ranked 43rd, with an underwater rate of 8.9 percent. Indiana’s rate was 11.3 percent.
   .
   Falling property values and unemployment near 10 percent have spurred a surge in foreclosures.
   .
   The asset value of real estate held by U.S. households fell by $649 billion in the third quarter to $16.6 trillion (about 3%), the Federal Reserve said Dec.9.
   .
   Home prices may drop as much as 11 percent more through the first quarter of 2012 before finding a bottom, according to a Morgan Stanley report last week.
   .
   “House prices are going to fall more next spring and that will bring more negative equity,” Fleming said.

   . Negative equity discourages homeowners from maintaining their property or their payments, “because their financial interest (the equity) has disappeared and has only a small prospect of returning soon,” CoreLogic said.
   .
   About 2,4 million borrowers had less than 5 percent equity in their home from June through September, bringing the total amount of mortgaged homes underwater or near negative equity to 27.5 percent. In Ohio, about 25 percent of borrowers had less than 5 percent equity in their homes, compared to less than 14 percent in Kentucky and about 15 percent in Indiana.

   Source: Foreclosures mean fewer ‘underwater’- NUMBER OF HOMES WORTHLESS THAN THE MORTGAGE DROPS. Bloomberg News and The Enquirer 12/14/10 A9