IN SUMMATION

This is not my area of expertise. 

I’m not a real estate agent.  I can’t tell you what your house is worth.

I’m not a lawyer.  Nothing in this document should be considered legal advice.  It’s not.

I’m a data and systems analyst.

Something about the over-assessment of my property pushed my button. I can’t even say why. 

I’m sure I’ve missed some things.  I might even have a couple of things wrong.  It would have been nice if I could have executed some sql queries directly against the database, but that’s not an option.  Yet.

I believe knowledge is power and information is key. 

The County Assessor’s office is not very forthcoming when it comes to sharing information.

I am.

By sharing what I’ve learned thru this process, I’m hoping it will empower others.

Mostly, I hope for a change in the policies and practices of the St. Louis County Assessor’s office, under whatever circumstances that comes about.

To start from the beginning, go https://reassessment101.blogspot.com/2019/04/welcome.html

Irony is....

Here's some irony.

Assessor’s Report Card

Maybe it’s just me…..?

Nope.

https://stc.mo.gov/assessor/appeals-pending-11-7-16/

The Missouri State Tax Commission is where your appeal ends up after you’ve exhausted all of your options with the local Assessor’s office and the Board of Equalization, without satisfaction.

If you visit the link above and click the download button, you can see a list of all of the appeals that are still pending before the State Tax Commission. 

As of this update for 3/5, there were 11,093 separate appeals still pending.

Of those 11,093 pending appeals, 10,266 are from St. Louis County. 

The difference of 827 constitutes the total number appeals pending FOR THE REST OF THE POPULATION OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI IN ITS ENTIRETY, including St. Louis City.

It’s important to note, this does not include the many multitudes of appeals that were resolved at earlier stages of the appeal process.  These are just the ones that weren’t.

AND, these are all pending from prior reassessment years.  The County Assessor’s office hasn’t even started taking appeals for the 2019 reassessment.

Just imagine for a moment the amount of tax-payer money that’s being spent on resolving appeals. 

And then imagine how many of those appeals could be avoided if the County Assessor’s office was simply complying with Missouri Statutes.  

And then finally, imagine how many more could be avoided if the County Assessor’s office was applying actual “generally accepted appraisal techniques,” instead of whatever you would call what they are doing.

The Missouri State Tax Commission

https://stc.mo.gov/about/

I’m curious if they’re aware of all of this going on?

If not, they’ll know soon enough.

New and Creative Ways to Manipulate the Data

When I heard the numbers were posted for the 2019 reassessment, I couldn’t help but check them out. 

I discovered several new and unusual things, but one of particular interest.

It’s valid practice to treat houses in the same subdivision as best comps.  With few exceptions, they are generally going to be the best comps available.  Exceptions would include older subdivisions with newer add-ons, or new builds in older subdivisions resulting from tear-downs, and even cases where someone simply paid way too much for one particular house.

In 2017 and 2018, my subdivision had three home sales.  This is very unusual for us, as I don’t believe we’ve had three home sales in the ten years prior, combined.   We have a small subdivision and the residents just seem to want to stay put.  This was going to be the first reassessment ever where the County Assessor’s office would be using three homes from our own subdivision as comps, and the first real opportunity we would have had to be accurately assessed. 

Or so I thought.   I was wrong.

When I reviewed the comps listed on the reassessment notices, I only saw two of the houses being used.  After checking the posted list of valid home sales, I discovered why.  The County Assessor’s office hadn’t categorized the third house as a valid sale, but rather as an “Not Open Market” sale.

Except that it wasn’t a “Not Open Market” sale.  

It was a valid market sale.  It was listed with a realtor, just like the other two.  There was NOTHING that was "off" about this sale.  I know for a fact because the prior owner is a personal friend of mine.  I've also talked to the buyer and the real estate agent, and all are willing to sign affidavits as such.

I’m sure it’s just coincidental that they “mistakenly” flagged the least expensive of the three sales, right?

And I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that, by removing a subdivision house that sold for $446k from the list of comps, they could then replace it with a different comp – this time with a 9yo, more than 3000 sq. ft. house sitting on a half-acre+ lot, and located nearly a mile away.  No, it’s not a good comp for our neighborhood, and there are dozens of better comps available, but it sold for $555k – significantly more than any of the three home sales from within the subdivision -- and that’s what’s important if the sole motivation of the County Assessor’s office is to hike up assessed values.  And they’re simply not going to be able to do that by selecting a property that sold for less than what they already previously assessed the neighborhood houses two years prior.  

So, they manipulate the selection of comps, and apparently the list of eligible comps as well.

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UPDATE:  I received feedback on this from the County Assessor's office.  Ironically, they deny it and inadvertently confirm it in the same explanation.  For example:
... property was either sold out of estate,  or as a result of a divorce, which raises “red flags” in terms of whether the seller was under duress or time pressures that might have resulted in accepting a below-market price.

In other words, they don't know, and apparently aren't obligated to have any proof.  But if the price looks low to them, they get to flag it as not a valid sale.

Obviously, with this filter, they aren't looking for homes that are over-priced to flag.....

Would Somebody Please Explain #2

… the row marked “year remodeled.”  It doesn’t have an “i” link for more information.

How is this defined, and more importantly, what is the impact on valuation?

https://revenue.stlouisco.com/IAS/

What constitutes a “remodel?”  Is there some way to distinguish by the year entered in that column that the new counter-top and faucets in the kitchen of property #1 is not equivalent to the full kitchen and three bath gut-and-replace that was done to property #2?  Or is property #1 penalized with the same adjustment calculation as property #2 because they’re both categorized simply as “remodeled?”

And what about patios and decks?  Is there something coded secretly in the measurement of the square footage that indicates that these two patios are not equal?  Or is a patio a patio and a deck is deck in the eyes of the assessor’s office and nothing matters but size?

http://samtheconcreteman-cincinnati.com

biondocement.com

I’m willing to bet there isn’t a secret code behind the measurement.  If there is, how was my non-existent 525 sq ft deck coded?

The fact is that the County Assessor’s office is not doing a decent job on the inspections that they’re already required to do by law.  Seems very unlikely they could correctly code the individual property features.

That would be fine if the secondary property aspects were just informational and didn’t actually factor into the assessment calculations.

The problem is that County is still assessing properties using this generic measurement data, so in their calculations, presuming the same square footage, the patio on the left will be valued the same as the patio on the right.

Of course, I could be wrong, but there certainly isn't anything available online for property owners to view.  And even if so, my own experience with my deck makes me highly doubt it would be accurate.

Would Somebody Please Explain

The comp used for this property sold fairly recently, on 3/2/18.  It sold for $641k.  After comparing the property details of the comparable property to the property details of the target property, the County Assessor’s office adjusted the sale price of the comparable property down $20k, to $621k. 

https://revenue.stlouisco.com/IAS/

Except that the comparable property IS THE SAME AS the target property.   The property that recently sold was used as one of its own comps. 

I don’t understand this adjustment.

I could understand if they had increased the sale price, because the housing market is improving, and a house that sold nine months ago should have increased in value, even if just minimally.  And I could understand an increase if the new property owners had done some improvements since moving in.

But being as it’s exactly the same house, why in the world would the sale value be adjusted down?

Per the County …

https://revenue.stlouisco.com/IAS/

….except that in the example above, THERE ARE NO DIFFERENCES.  The comparable and subject properties are the same property.

And then, after determining that the real market value of the house was not $641k as it sold for, but was actually only valued at $621k, they then calculated the “Market Value Estimate” to be $755k.

  

This example is not at all unusual for recently sold properties.

By the way, is the actual Statistical Model Estimate for this property $753k or $741k?

Adjusted Sales Price, according to the County Assessor’s Office

This is an interesting example of the "magic" that the County Assessor's office performs in its reassessment process.  I'm immeasurably saddened that this is done by a computer.

These two properties sold in 2016 within a month of each other.  They are located about 200 feet from each other in the same subdivision.  They were used as comps for another property.  Now, nevermind that the one is a ranch and the other is a two-story.  We've already discussed the inappropriateness of mixing ranches and two-story houses as comps.  

Notice the overall specs of the two houses.  The one on the right is clearly a bigger house.  It has a slightly larger lot, significantly more square footage, 5 years newer, larger finished area in the basement, bigger garage (3-car vs 2-car), and bigger patio.  The only disadvantage is that it's only 3 bedroom.

Everything about this second property screams that it is more valuable than the one in the first column.  Even the "dwelling value" and "cost value" indicate such.

Most importantly, the market value proved that out, too, with the property in the second column selling for significantly more than the one in the first column.

Now look at the "Adjusted Sale Price" that was calculated by the County Assessor's program.



The County adjusted the sale price of the smaller house to be more than that of the larger house.  This should trigger red flags all over for the Assessor's office.

This adjusted sale price is what is then used to determine the assessed value.  It's no wonder they have so many complaints pending.

Adjusted Sales Price

This is not associated to my property.  If it was, I would be angry.

“So, you’re going to take my house and comp it to a bigger house (2960 vs. 3025) with a bigger garage (682 vs. 770) and an extra fixture (2 vs. 3) on a bigger lot (.32. vs. .54) that was built 16 years later than mine (1994 vs. 2010), and the only advantage I have is a 700 sq familyroom in the basement, then you’re going to knock $18k off the sale price of that house and call it even???  I don’t think so!  

And how exactly is their larger .54- acre lot valued at less than my smaller .32-acre lot? (139k vs. 141k)”

“Oh, and you also comp’d my 4br/3.5b 2-story to a 3br/2.5b ranch (not shown).”

https://revenue.stlouisco.com/IAS/