To Appeal or Not to Appeal

To appeal or not to appeal, that is the question. Every year property owners throughout the United States quietly recite this real estate tax Shakespearean soliloquy when they open that assessment envelope. The answer need not be difficult to ascertain!

Here are three simple things to consider when determining whether or not you should appeal your assessment.

1) Did the % increase in my assessment exceed the % increase in my property’s NOI year over year. If the answer is yes, then you may have an appeal opportunity.

2) Did my assessment go up AND was my property vacancy higher as of the last day of the preceding calendar year than it was at the beginning of that year? If the answer is yes, then you may have an appeal opportunity.

3) Did my assessment go up AND did my property performance decline in the preceding year? If the answer is yes, then you may have an appeal opportunity.

As with any Shakespearean tragedy, sometimes it takes a few acts to understand exactly what’s going on, so don’t worry if your answers are a bit more nuanced and require more discussion than what I’ve outlined above. Overall, determining the market value of a property before you buy or sell can be as much art as it is science, but the fundamentals of how your property performance is reflected in an assessed value is more formulaic, so don’t get too introspective.

We’re here to help translate and facilitate. We have mountains of data and results that help inform a decision as to whether an appeal is warranted and we’re ready to leverage that to your benefit.