NYC Assessment of its “Market Forces”
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Thursday, March 15, 2012, 12:08 PM
2 Comments
I was looking through the NYC’s Fiscal Year 2013 Assessment roll to see how the city measured year-over-year changes in property values – of course its a function of revenue so assumed to be biased high but its interesting.
I zeroed in on the “market force” changes based on property types for the city and boroughs. The increase for all property types in NYC was +1.75% and the boroughs by rank were:
- Manhattan +3.71%
- Brooklyn +3.01%
- Bronx +2.4%
- Queens +0.68%
- Staten Island +0.23%
New York City
Manhattan
Brooklyn
Queens
Bronx
Staten Island
Hi Jonathan, As an Assessor myself, I feel it is necessary to address your comment – “of course its a function of revenue so assumed to be biased high”. This is a widely held opinion, albeit one which is completely inaccurate. Higher assessments, across the board, do not result in higher tax collections. If the city needs to collect say, $100,000,000 in real estate taxes then they will collect $100,000,000 in real estate taxes, irrespective of the assessed value. If assessments go down the tax rate will go up and if assessments go up the tax rate will go down, assuming the $100,000,000 levy remains unchanged.
The purpose of assessments is to insure that all taxpayers are paying their “fair share” of the burden, that’s all. If a $1,000,000 property is assessed for $1,000,000 (100% of its value) or $100,000 (10% of its value) it doesn’t matter as long as other $1,000,000 properties are assessed at the same level. If properties with similar values are assessed at similar levels, you have equity in the assessment roll.
Thanks Todd – yes I was a bit too flippant for my own good. I do understand what you are saying and completely agree. My skepticism that there is upward bias really speaks to the mill rate and not the assessed value. No slight intended to the assessor universe.