This post is meant to help a taxpayer get a jump-start on determining: is my property over-assessed? This post is not intended to cover all nuance that may arise for a particular taxpayer. Nuance abounds, which is why I’ve provided links to the state rules and public data. If you are a homeowner than you likely recently received your assessment postcard. On the back of the postcard are “Appeal Instructions” and taxpayers are asked “if you agree with the assessed value shown, you do not need to do anything.” But…if you disagree with the assessed value, you can appeal, leading ...
For the past 4 years I’ve been researching and writing about property taxes and revaluation (among other topics) on CivicParent. In the past year I’ve also written about tax appeals and I also served on a team of Jersey City Together volunteers in 2017 that helped over 30 residents save over $40,000 in tax expense through successful appeals. On June 5th I hosted a tax appeals workshop at New Hope Missionary Baptist Church to explain revaluation and go over the appeals process. You can download my presentation here. I’ve also created this post as a summary. I hope it’s helpful ...
I received my new tax postcard in the mail yesterday so I figured I’d share a breakdown of how to read it. This is very similar to the former tax post card, with some notable exceptions: You can now see your NEW tax assessed value. This is the value assigned to your property by Appraisal Systems (the 3rd party firm conducting the Reval). The value you see on your tax postcard means this is the value now officially on file with the tax office of Jersey City. The appeal deadline is June 18, 2018. If you do not appeal by ...
I've got another Revaluation update, this one focused on Neptune Avenue which is an East/West street that stretches pretty much across Jersey City's south Greenville neighborhood. Similar to other Greenville Revaluation-related updates, this is a story of systemic overtaxation that is being fixed with Revaluation. First, some high level details about the data. Appraisal Systems' most recent assessment file is from March 23, 2018 and there are 206 properties on Neptune Ave. in this dataset. Of the 206 properties: Total net change in tax expense: - $511,773. 202 properties will see property tax expense DECREASES 4 properties will see property ...
Country Village / Our Lady of Mercy Revaluation Update: $3 million tax expense reduction (and counting...) for selected blocks March 18 2018. Appraisal Systems released a new batch of assessments on March 16th - the same day Jersey City's public school teachers went on strike. So...this latest update wasn't covered in the news. It should be though; finally, Country Village homes are listed. Per estimates released by Jersey City in December 2017, Country Village is expected to see the largest dollar-for-dollar tax expense decreases when the 2018 property revaluation is completed. This means we can finally get some home-by-home insight into the Revaluation-impact of the most ...
February 27, 2018. Appraisal Systems released a new batch of assessments this morning and I was most curious about tax change in systemically over-taxed areas. I was hoping streets in Country Village would be listed because, per estimates released by Jersey City in December 2017, Country Village is expected to see the largest dollar-for-dollar tax expense decreases when the 2018 property revaluation is completed. Also, I recently gave a property tax workshop at Our Lady of Mercy Church, located in the Country Village area and I am hoping to follow-up with those attendees re: tax expense change. Country Village was ...
Understanding the Tax Rate that Drives Your Property Tax Expense General Tax Rate = Total Levy / Tax Base. February 25, 2018. I got a question recently about the tax rate as it relates to property taxes. It prompted me to write about the tax rate in a bit more detail to explain how the tax rate is changing, why it's changing, and what to expect in the coming months as the Revaluation unfolds. The NJ Division of Taxation explains the tax rate here and they show how the tax rate is used to compute your tax bill: But how is ...
Updated: Feb 19, 2018. Appraisal Systems today published on its website an updated assessments file with about 1,950 new properties added (note: I won’t be updating this page with every single new release from Appraisal Systems…but I have a property tax workshop tonight at Our Lady of Mercy Church and I wanted to be equipped with latest/greatest data and happened to notice new data). Most background and context I shared yesterday (per post below) still stands. But, some new info I’m now observing: The “VCS” field in Appraisal Systems’ data does, as I noted yesterday, define geographic areas within Jersey ...
Learn how to compute if your property tax expense will go up or down in a citywide revaluation. It’s helpful to have a calculator, pen, and paper on hand while watching this video ...
Learn the basics about property revaluation in this 8-minute CivicParent tutorial: ...
This post is part of my effort to share information about Jersey City’s Property Revaluation. I wrote a Revaluation series last year which you can read here. In a citywide revaluation, your new assessment should equal your market value. When establishing market value of your home, one set of data that can be useful is recent, comparable, usable home sales, where: Recent is a sale that’s occurred within the past 1-3 years, thus still has time-based relevance about market value. Usable, generally speaking, is a 3rd party sale. Technically speaking, a sale not otherwise coded by NJ state law as a non-usable ...
Figure out your ASSESSED value ASSESSED Value = Your home’s value according to the GOVERNMENT. Your assessed value is what the city thinks your property is worth for property taxation purposes. It is the basis on which your tax bill is computed each year: Your Annual Tax Expense = Assessed Value x Tax Rate Assessed value is part of your tax record, which is on file with the city, county, and state … and accessible online HERE. I have a sample tax record pictured below. Note that assessed value is the sum-total of 2 components: Land Value PLUS Building Value (the “building” ...
Jersey City property taxes, as seen through state compliance data: Jersey City’s last citywide revaluation was in 1988. Jersey City’s 2017 equalization ratio is 23.66%. Jersey City’s 2017 coefficient of deviation is 35.66%. On this map: Green = under-taxed | Red = over-taxed NJ property tax law is based on this foundational premise: assessed values are supposed to equal market values. Put another way: your tax bill is supposed to be based on the market value of your home. The state tracks how compliant a city is with this premise with something called an “Assessment-Sales Ratio” which is defined as: Assessed Value / ...
WHO conducted Jersey City’s property revaluation? In 2016 Jersey City hired Appraisal Systems, Inc. for $4.4 million to conduct the revaluation. Here are some helpful links about the firm: ASI’s website page for Jersey City residents here. ASI’s generic powerpoint that explains the Revaluation process is here. This is an excellent overview of the general process. ASI provided Ward-specific overviews of the Revaluation in the spring of 2017. I attended the Ward “A” meeting and summarized the meeting in a CivicParent post here. Per this NJ State Legislature report, in 2005 there were only 12 firms statewide that conducted citywide revaluations, and ...
Jersey City Together Tax Appeal Workshop. In March 2017 I worked with a team of Jersey City Together leaders to provide a tax appeals workshop. We invited homeowners to meet with us to determine if their homes were over-assessed which, in turn, helped us determine if they were over-taxed. It was a cooperative civic action involving many volunteers…over 100 homeowners registered and nearly that many showed up and waited in line to participate in the workshop (see JC Together’s Facebook status below for pictures from the workshop). A team of us with Jersey City Together then analyzed the data, helped prep ...
