By Kevin Boneske
Employed author
HOWARD – A Fair Market Assessments contract to re-evaluate the properties in the village for 2022 was approved by the Howard Village Board on June 14th.
The $ 68,400 contract amount requires four payments of $ 17,100 over the next year to update the valuation records and bring property values to or near 100% fair market value in accordance with state law.
Chris Haltom, Director of Administrative Services, said the village is now in a three-year plan to revalue the property in Howard, with the two most recent market adjustment agreements in 2016 and 2019.
“We think this is a good time (to re-evaluate the property),” he said. “We see a unique situation here. Commercial real estate is losing value and residential real estate is increasing in value. “
Haltom said the Howard values valued this year are valued at 88.5% of market value.
Assessor Mike Denor said property values assessed must be within 10% of market value to comply with US Treasury Department regulations.
Denor said that revaluing the property every three years will result in valued values ”having a small incremental increase rather than a double-digit increase between the eyes”.
Village administrator Paul Evert said that an increase in the appraised value of a property does not mean an increase in taxes.
“Just because the estimated value of the whole village could double, that would only cut the mill rate in half,” he said. “We’re not allowed to raise any more taxes because Mike says the village is more than the estimate three years ago.”
Evert said the revaluation seeks equity in property values.
“If there is a class that has really been dropped and a class that has increased (in value), reflect that because that is where you will get the variance in the tax bills,” he said.
If the appraised value of a property increases 10% after revaluation but the village as a whole increases 12%, Evert said the property will increase less than the total percentage in Howard, the tax bill will decrease.
“The (real estate) market is hot,” he said. “(The referee) will actually be looking at a snapshot, however, which is January 1, 2022 … If all hell breaks loose in February 2022, (the referee) probably won’t take that into account, or it may be later in the year or so. Here’s how it works … Mike isn’t going to help everyone solve their budget problem. That (appreciation) doesn’t necessarily have to make things worse for people from a tax point of view. It’s really up to the governing bodies and how much money they love. “
Denor said the real estate market is “always on the move, always changing”.
“We look at every single house,” he says. “We have it broken down by neighborhood, but then we look at every house within each neighborhood to find a new value. And sometimes certain areas show a greater or lesser increase than others, just for different reasons. “
Denor said the revaluation does not increase total taxes in a community.
“The dues – you know when you might get the village or school budgets – that will make a difference,” he said. “But the net result of any re-evaluation is consistency.”