Currituck property revaluation

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FROM THE DAILY ADVANCE

Currituck land values likely to decline in new valuation

By Cindy Beamon

The Daily Advance

Friday, June 3, 2011

New property valuations will not take effect in Currituck until 2013,
but the process starts this summer to update land appraisals.
Landowners can expect appraisers to begin visiting properties in July
or August, said County Manager Dan Scanlon. The process will take about a
year, and by next summer, residents should be mailed the new values.
Residents will then have a chance to appeal the evaluations before they
take effect, Scanlon said.
Even before the new appraisals begin, county officials are predicting
that land values will be down. The county’s last evaluation eight years
ago was at the height of a housing boom, and property values have
dropped significantly since then.
Property values on the Outer Banks, harder hit by the real estate
market’s decline, are expected to drop more dramatically than on the
mainland.
The uneven drop in property values is likely to shift more of the tax
burden to the mainland, Scanlon predicted. At present, Corolla provides
about 56 percent of the county’s property tax income, but the steep drop
in values on the Outer Banks is likely to reduce that percentage, he
said. The overall effect will be that property owners on the mainland
will be paying a greater portion of property taxes in the county.
Another possible effect of the decreased property values would be an increase in the county tax rate.
At present, property owners pay 32 cents per $100 valuation. For a
property owner with land valued at $100,000, the tax would be $320. If
the landowner’s property value drops 20 percent with the new valuation,
the same property valued at $80,000 would generate $256 in taxes.
The overall effect countywide, would be less income for governmental
services. To compensate for the loss, the county will need to raise
property taxes to generate the same revenue, Scanlon explained.
“We would have to raise the tax rate to maintain the same level of services,” he said.
The effect on individual taxpayers would depend on the new tax rate and how much their property decreases in value.
Property owners on the Outer Banks where land values are expected to
drop the most are less likely to see their bills go up as the tax rate
goes up.
Property owners on the mainland where values are expected drop less
dramatically are more likely to see their tax bills go up as the tax
rate rises.