ST. LOUIS 鈥 When Tower Grove South homeowner Kate Boyd opened her new city property assessment recently, it was the ultimate good news/bad news moment.
The official appraised value of her home on Humphrey Street, the city told her, had jumped more than 80 percent in two years, from about $120,000 in 2015 to about $217,000 now 鈥 a $97,000 bump, though her only improvement to the property in that time was to paint two rooms and refinish a floor.
Of course, her property tax bill will jump, too, from the roughly $1,900 annually she paid two years ago to somewhere around $3,500 now.
鈥淚 had expected it to go up, but I was definitely shocked by how much it went up,鈥 said Boyd, who is a paralegal. 鈥淢y husband is a city cop, and he hasn鈥檛 had a raise in years. I want to pay my taxes 鈥 I want the police and the teachers to get raises. But it鈥檚 going to hurt.鈥
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Similar stories of property-tax sticker shock are buzzing around St. 亚洲无码 gathering places real and virtual, with this month鈥檚 biennial reassessment of all real estate within the city limits.
The preliminary numbers released by the St. 亚洲无码 assessor鈥檚 office show that city real estate values have finally regained the ground lost in the recession. Total real property was assessed (a lower number than the appraised value) at $3.61 billion this year, exceeding its previous high of $3.48 billion in 2010.
But while residents of popular neighborhoods grouse at the prospect of higher tax bills, the assessment data show that the housing recovery has not moved north of Delmar Boulevard. Except for a handful of neighborhoods just north of the central corridor, nearly every north St. 亚洲无码 neighborhood saw further declines in median home values.
Those declines, however, weren鈥檛 enough to offset rising values elsewhere.
The city has reported that the market value of existing residential property rose by about 12 percent since the previous citywide assessment of two years ago, a huge spike. In all, more than one-third of St. 亚洲无码鈥 140,000 properties rose in value, with some 17,000 rising by 15 percent or more, requiring the city to make on-site physical inspections to confirm it.
Some of the biggest increases have been in Boyd鈥檚 neighborhood and other areas around Tower Grove Park.
Map by Walker Moskop
*Excludes neighborhood with fewer than 50 single-family homes in 2015 or 2017. Includes new construction that isn't tax-abated or tax-exempt.
鈥淭hose markets are very viable markets right now,鈥 said Joseph Dolan of Dolan Appraisal company. 鈥淭hey have seen several years of renovations and good buyer demand for it. You would anticipate the tax man would kind of catch up.鈥
Missouri state law requires such citywide reassessments every odd-numbered year, to ensure that the official appraised value of property for tax purposes is in line with actual market values.
鈥淎s we see the market moving, then we have to move,鈥 St. 亚洲无码 Assessor Freddie Dunlap said in an interview.
The increase in total assessed residential value is the highest since 2007. It jumped by 22 percent that year 鈥 almost double the increase during this reassessment. Except for 2015, when there was a modest 1 percent increase, assessed residential values fell in the years following the recession, including an almost 11 percent drop in 2013.
Some observers say that the city鈥檚 past appraisals have been artificially low and that the current ones could be seen as a correction, boosting those estimated values closer to what they would be in the real-world housing market. Still, the suddenness of it is an issue.
鈥淥ur property taxes have always been pretty modest in comparison to other places 鈥 so maybe it needed to happen. Whether it needed to happen this dramatically is another question,鈥 said Barbara Gilchrist, president of the Tower Grove Heights Neighborhood Association, whose own home鈥檚 official value has jumped by 30 percent in the new round of assessments. 鈥淭here will be people for whom this is a serious financial strain.鈥
Indeed, the city was under-assessed in the past, so much so that the state forced the assessor鈥檚 office to catch up, leading to increases in residential assessed values of 33 percent in 2005 and 22 percent two years later.
But the assessor鈥檚 office says sales data from last year and 2015 point to sharply rising values.
鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 really until the sales that started to occur in 2015 that those values started shooting up,鈥 said Deputy St. 亚洲无码 Assessor Shawn Ordway.
Chris Grus, a broker with Keller Williams active in the neighborhoods around Tower Grove Park, said the increased assessed values appeared to be in line with the sales activity he had seen.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e living in a neighborhood that鈥檚 walkable and kind of an urbanist鈥檚 dream,鈥 Grus said. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e just got so much going for this neighborhood, it would be hard for me to justify to somebody they鈥檙e being overcharged on their tax bill.鈥
There seems to be strong demand for many neighborhoods closer to the urban core, including inner ring suburbs such as Clayton, Richmond Heights and Maplewood, said Brad Beggs, a principal and an appraiser at urban planning firm Development Strategies. St. 亚洲无码 County reassessments are being mailed out now, but the data weren鈥檛 available to analyze for this report.
Part of the reason for sharply increasing home values in St. 亚洲无码 is that supply is more limited in city neighborhoods than in suburbs with open land, Beggs said.
鈥淭here are only so many homes in the city,鈥 he said. 鈥淚f you鈥檙e looking at a hot neighborhood, it鈥檚 not like they can build another subdivision to satisfy that demand.鈥
North St. 亚洲无码 values
It鈥檚 a different story north of Delmar Boulevard. Median home values are still falling in almost every neighborhood there.
鈥淣orth city is pretty much the status quo,鈥 said Robert Vroman, an investor active in North St. 亚洲无码 real estate. 鈥淚f people are moving into the city, they鈥檙e moving to the south side.鈥
Vroman is put up for auction by the city because of unpaid taxes. Hundreds of parcels are put up for auction each year, and those that don鈥檛 attract buyers are taken over by the city鈥檚 land bank, the Land Reutilization Authority. Vroman typically buys the houses no one else bids on for a couple thousand dollars and then does minor repairs before selling them to lower-income buyers for about $10,000 or so.
鈥淭here鈥檚 more stuff that鈥檚 going vacant and being torn down and being lost to the city (LRA) every year,鈥 he said.
That鈥檚 not to say there aren鈥檛 streets in some north side neighborhoods where home values are notching modest increases.
A Post-Dispatch analysis of changes in median single-family home values found scattered blocks where appraised values had risen in north St. 亚洲无码. But in those cases, those blocks were typically surrounded by areas where home values had dropped.
That analysis doesn鈥檛 account for tax-abated or tax-exempt properties.
Map by Walker Moskop
But in the West End and Visitation Park neighborhoods, which are just north of Delmar along the western edge of the city, many contiguous blocks saw their appraised values rise or hold steady. Just east of the future site of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, several blocks in the St. 亚洲无码 Place neighborhood also saw an increase.
North St. 亚洲无码 is often 鈥渦nfortunately painted in broad strokes,鈥 said John Burghoff of John Burghoff Residential Appraisal in St. 亚洲无码.
鈥淭here are certainly neighborhoods up there that are stable,鈥 he said.
But overall, the median appraised value of single family homes north of Delmar has fallen in every assessment since 2009. Taken as a whole, the median single family appraisal value for all areas south of Delmar rose slightly from 2013 to 2015 and jumped by 16 percent during the past two years.
While the median home value is still falling in north St. 亚洲无码, the number of foreclosures, which can affect appraised values of nearby homes, has 鈥渟lowed substantially,鈥 Ordway, the deputy assessor, said.
Values aren鈥檛 鈥済oing down as fast as they were,鈥 said Dunlap, the city assessor. 鈥淚t鈥檚 slowing.鈥
However, others point out out many areas of north city lack functioning housing markets, which affects values.
鈥淵ou don鈥檛 have the organized real estate community that鈥檚 selling that part of the city,鈥 Beggs at Development Strategies said.
Todd Swanstrom, a professor of urban policy at the University of Missouri-St. 亚洲无码, said the rising values in some south city and central corridor neighborhoods and the declines in north city pointed to widening disparities.
He referenced a recent chapter written by Hank Webber, a Washington university professor and vice chancellor, for the book 鈥淥n the Edge: America鈥檚 Middle Neighborhoods.鈥 Webber found the number of neighborhoods with median income between 75 percent and 125 percent of the St. 亚洲无码 average had declined to 28 percent in 2010 from 52 percent in 1970.
Meanwhile, the number of neighborhoods with median income below 75 percent of the city average had risen to 45 percent from 35 percent, while the number of 鈥渨ealthy鈥 neighborhoods above 125 percent of the average had doubled, to 27 percent.
Rising disparity had previously been discussed mostly as a phenomenon between city neighborhoods and affluent suburbs, Swanstrom said.
鈥淲hat this means is we鈥檙e getting more inequality in city neighborhoods,鈥 Swanstrom said. 鈥淣ow we see within the city itself increasing inequality between neighborhoods.鈥
How to appeal
The total assessed value of property in St. 亚洲无码 will likely be revised down slightly by the end of the year. That鈥檚 due to appeals from property owners.
Normally, there are about 1,500 appeals after the biennial reassessment.
Before filing a formal appeal, property owners can set up an informal appointment with the assessor鈥檚 office if they feel their property has been overvalued. The assessor鈥檚 office has set up a phone bank to field calls and has its appraisers ready to meet with property owners.
When you make an appointment, be prepared to bring in information supporting what you believe is the home鈥檚 value. A recent appraisal, sales information for similar houses on your block, bids from contractors on home repairs or pictures of interior conditions (city appraisers don鈥檛 know the inside conditions of homes they assess) can help argue your case.
鈥淲e鈥檙e willing to listen to any information they bring in,鈥 said Deputy St. 亚洲无码 Assessor Shawn Ordway.
Property owners must informally appeal assessments before July 1. Only the Board of Equalization or, later, the Missouri Tax Commission, can adjust assessments after that. Call the assessor鈥檚 office at (314) 589-6581 to make an appointment regarding a residential assessment and (314) 589-6586 regarding a commercial assessment.
Formal appeals for Board of Equalization review must be filed by July 10.聽
鈥 Jacob Barker
How your taxes are set
The St. 亚洲无码 assessor is only in charge of estimating values. Tax rates are set by taxing authorities, such as St. 亚洲无码 Public Schools, the Zoo-Museum District and the library.
Due to the Missouri Hancock Amendment limiting property tax increases, taxing jurisdictions can鈥檛 receive a windfall when values rise. They are allowed only a small increase tied to inflation.
So this year, most taxing jurisdictions expect to adjust their rates down to reflect higher property values. The city of St. 亚洲无码, for instance, will charge a combined $1.54 per $100 assessed value, versus $1.62 per $100 assessed value last year.
Overall, the rate for city property will fall from $8.38 per $100 in assessed value to $8.30.
A fast-rising property value, though, can still mean higher taxes for some homeowners.
About 62 percent of all property taxes go to the school district. The city gets about 18.5 percent.
One interesting quirk this year is that St. 亚洲无码 Public Schools is actually raising its rate despite the rising property values. Its overall rate will go up to $5.14 from $5.12 per $100 assessed value.
While its general fund levy was revised down, its debt service levy was increased by 18 cents per $100 assessed value.
The assessor鈥檚 office says they have checked with the state and the debt levy increase is allowed under state law.聽