Duval County property values buck Florida trend by declining in 2013

[thelakelander]

Tough luck for Jacksonville property owners...

From Tampa to Fort Lauderdale to Miami to Orlando to St. Petersburg, Florida's major urban counties are finally seeing their tax bases growing again.

But Jacksonville is still stuck in reverse, making it increasingly difficult for the city to balance its budget.
Even though the real estate industry showed signs of recovery in 2012, Duval County's taxable property value dipped again, marking the sixth straight year City Hall has dealt with a smaller tax base at budget time.
"It does seem kind of odd," Councilman Bill Bishop said of the drop in assessed values.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-08-31/story/duval-county-property-values-buck-florida-trend-declining-2013#ixzz2ddnY9Fmd

[tufsu1]

the problem is taxable value is determined early in the year....we all know that Jax. is slower than the other major Florida markets (prices didn't go up as much through 2006 and didn't decline as rapidly through 2010)....I do think that prices have started going up in Jax, so next year should show an increase

[simms3]

Isn't this what the smart taxpayers of Duval County want?  Lower taxes?   

I don't know exactly how assessments work in Jax, either on the commercial side or the residential, but I doubt given the circumstances that commercial property values outside of class A SS multifamily and a few <5 year old Publix-anchored SCs on primo corners have increased; and my mom sells houses...I've heard the pricing on a couple of her listings - still shockingly low (she mainly does $1M+...so if the real estate she sells is still lagging, there is a problem since waterfront and desirable location listings should be the first to see an upswing).  Oceanfront in PVB seems to be the only highly desirable resi real estate in the area, although I was told that John Gorrie was finally selling (wow...it took years to sell a few $100-200K totally rehabbed loft condos in a relatively happening neighboorhood spot...that's never a good sign!).  I doubt the assessor has room to increase values, so it just might be that they are indeed still going down.  That's a shame - might be one of just a few cities in America where that's the case and I don't want to mention the others by name for fear of assassination by membersof this forum.

[Dog Walker]

I was shocked to see the values on my properties valued lower than last year too.  There is no way I would consider selling any of them for what the Property Appraiser says they are worth.  I've had unsolicited offers for much more money on one of them.

Pars of Riverside must be bucking the trend though.  There have been some recent sales that have been shockingly high.  I thought one of my neighbors was crazy for the price he wanted for his house, but in two weeks he rejected two full price offers since they didn't cover closing costs and finally accepted an offer that did.

That said, there are still some real bargains around here.

[Cheshire Cat]

Hmmm.  My tax bill has never gone down but rather up and homes are selling here, so not sure how accurate this report is. 

[tufsu1]

Hmmm.  My tax bill has never gone down but rather up and homes are selling here, so not sure how accurate this report is. 

Really?  Mine has gone down 5 years in a row....and this year our assessed value was adjusted down a lot...so even with the proposed rate hike, my bill is dropping several hundred dollars

[simms3]

There is assessed value, then there is millage rate and special assessments.  Perhaps the latter have gone up while assessed values have decreased?

And correct, assessed value has no correlation to what a property would sell on the market.  I believe Duval takes a "Fair Market Value" (which not knowing how that's determined in Duval, it probably has several variables such as last sale price grown for inflation/CPI/local market trends...2% max here in CA, income, high value land, intangible benefits) and applies a 40% rate to get to assessed value, so it probably makes sense to assume that the value of your home is at least 2.5x what the assessed value is...and if you think it's less you appeal.

Commercially, so many things can trigger a re-assessment, such as building improvements over a certain scope, a new lease, obviously a sale, etc etc.

Regardless, it's quite surprising that Jacksonville is dealing with lower and lower tax base annually despite still growing...and at the same time one would think that there would be enough sales and new leasing activity and all of the SS development activity that would pick up the ad valorem tax base in Duval County.

I found this quote misleading:

"So it's logical to expect that they would be rebounding first," he said.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-08-31/story/duval-county-property-values-buck-florida-trend-declining-2013#ixzz2dfXCgsEY

I feel like the rest of the country has basically rebounded and even S and Central FL "rebounded" 1-2 years ago?  How is Jacksonville this far behind?  I think there is a deeper issue - I believe that despite numeric growth, there is true economic stagnation in NE FL.  The military is supposed to smooth cycles in NE FL, but the military has been shrinking in NE FL and certainly hasn't helped in any material way.  The city needs to reinvent itself.

[tufsu1]

The millage rate in Jax was reduced for many years....however the recession led Mayor Peyton to use tge roll back (or roll up given the situation) rate 2 straight years.....in his first 2 budgets, Mayor Brown kept the rate flat...and his budget this year dud the same, but Council has approved a tentative rate increase of up to 15%.

[fsquid]

my assessed value increased this year for the first time since I moved here in '09

[Duvaltopia]

We have a City Council and Mayor that stand against equality for Jacksonville's gay and lesbian citizens. We are now on the fringe of being a radicalized fundamentalist city with one of the worst reputations in the country. Enlightened people and businesses are less likely to move here when they can choose any other major city and find better vision and leadership. We lost Wells Fargo regional headquarters to Miami solely on Jacksonville's refusal to protect against LGBT discrimination. Think of all the excellent jobs we lost, all the restaurants that sit half empty, all the houses that weren't bought because of this neanderthal, hateful policy. If you want this city to progress, and property values to rise, get off your butt and work for an entirely new City Council and Mayor next election. The future of our city depends on it.

[Apache]

We have a City Council and Mayor that stand against equality for Jacksonville's gay and lesbian citizens. We are now on the fringe of being a radicalized fundamentalist city with one of the worst reputations in the country. Enlightened people and businesses are less likely to move here when they can choose any other major city and find better vision and leadership. We lost Wells Fargo regional headquarters to Miami solely on Jacksonville's refusal to protect against LGBT discrimination. Think of all the excellent jobs we lost, all the restaurants that sit half empty, all the houses that weren't bought because of this neanderthal, hateful policy. If you want this city to progress, and property values to rise, get off your butt and work for an entirely new City Council and Mayor next election. The future of our city depends on it.

So do you really believe our city is in the crapper and the long list of problems in your post is because of a minority of homophobes and the non passage of a recent ordinance ?

[Tacachale]

^It certainly doesn't help, and it's symptomatic of the problems in our leadership.

[strider]

A few years ago, I appealed the value on one of our houses in Springfield (we built in in 2005/6) because it went up in value when everything around us was going down and the real value was less than assessed value.  I was told they were a year behind and that they were also on a mission to make the assessed value the same as real market value.   Since then, they have been dropping every year.  The house that I had questioned is still above real market value but at least within about 10% now.  Most of our houses are at what I would think is market value for last year.  What is interesting is that one house in Springfield went down 3% while another, in a much more desirable area of Springfield, went down 23%.  Perhaps because it does need exterior paint (which we are about to do) so next year, it will go back up?

Basically, it often seems like there is no rhyme nor reason.  Perhaps it is who does it? In any case, if it is true that they have decided to try to make assessed value the same as real value, look for lots of increases on non-exempt properties in the coming years.  Or so we all hope.

[m74reeves]

I think you have to wonder how (or if) the city's overabundance of foreclosures plays into these statistics.

[strider]

I don't know that Jacksonville is higher in foreclosures than anywhere else, but I did read that it takes 900 days to foreclose here.  That would seem that even if we had the same number of defaults as some other city, but it only took 400 days to foreclose there, it would make Jacksonville seem worse because the other city would be seeing a reduction of foreclosures  and we would still be in catch up mode.