protesting property taxes? (how do mere mortals find comps?)

[Halftime Hope]

Can anyone give me an idea how you search for comps? I have no special access to any searchable/query-able databases.  Thanks!

[kokotg]

we just sent in the sale price for other houses in our subdivision (from zillow). Literally no other house in our subdivision had ever sold for what they assessed us at, so that worked pretty well.

[prairiewindmomma]

Go to realtor.com, pop in your zip code, use the tab "recent sales" and look for properties of similar age, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and square footage. 

[gardenmom5]

Your country tax assessor has to use comps. Start there.  we had a field day one year with comparing the two, and how they were better properties than were ours.  (we had a hoarder across from us at the time. Grayhound bus, school bus, both filled to the rafters with junk.  Then the blackberries started eating them ... . A trailer on their property their daughter lived in . . . the property was vacant for several years after they left - and it was "the kegger house".  We shed no tears when it was torn down and three mcmansions were built in its place.

Next is redfin/other real estate software.

[Halftime Hope]

3 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Go to realtor.com, pop in your zip code, use the tab "recent sales" and look for properties of similar age, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and square footage. 

These don't have prices on them.

[Halftime Hope]

I was hoping for some nice app that would have recent sales, prices sold, and things like the house's square footage, number of bathrooms, and so on. Zillow only lists the last price on the listing on completed sales, not the actual sales price.

I hate to have to bug a realtor for comps, when I'm not planning to buy a house, and it's obvious I want it for property tax purposes, due to the time of year. (Deadline to file that you'll be appealing is May 15.)

 

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

I was able to find this information on Realtor. Our town just did a revaluation and our assessment went up a lot. Good in some ways but it means our taxes are going up 40-50%. And we live in a state with already high property taxes. I was hoping to find that they valued our house too high but that doesn’t seem to be the case, unfortunately. 

[Heartstrings]

Zillow and realtor usually have “last sold for” amounts for houses that sold a few months ago.  It takes about 90 days to get recorded and updated.  
 

This is a random sold house near me.  
 

[Heartstrings]

Realtor also has sold prices, not just listing prices.  You can see here where the sold fit amount is different from the listing.  It’s all public record so you can double check the price on your counties website.  
 

[Bootsie]

The selling price of a property is not public record in all states.

[fairfarmhand]

Thanks for this thread. We’ll be doing this as well, since they’re saying that our values have almost doubled. I think not.

[Heartstrings]

7 hours ago, Bootsie said:

The selling price of a property is not public record in all states.

Oh! I didn’t know that.  It is in mine so I just assumed.   That would make it much harder to find comps.   

[Halftime Hope]

Our property tax listing has the value of the "improvements" (i.e., the house) + the value of the land, combined to make the total value. The "improvements" alone has been jacked up over the Zillow estimate on our property, bringing the total market valuation to over $80K higher than the Zillow estimate. I know Zillow estimates are not known for their accuracy, but the amount it says my house value grew this last year is insanity.

I finally found a similar size home on Zillow that sold in February with a price on it: $100K less than my valuation. Sheesh...   (That's one comp.)

I'm still hoping for an easier way to do this.

[Heartstrings]

1 hour ago, Halftime Hope said:

Our property tax listing has the value of the "improvements" (i.e., the house) + the value of the land, combined to make the total value. The "improvements" alone has been jacked up over the Zillow estimate on our property, bringing the total market valuation to over $80K higher than the Zillow estimate. I know Zillow estimates are not known for their accuracy, but the amount it says my house value grew this last year is insanity.

I finally found a similar size home on Zillow that sold in February with a price on it: $100K less than my valuation. Sheesh...   (That's one comp.)

I'm still hoping for an easier way to do this.

Can you hire an assessor, like banks use when you buy a house?  I think ours was around $500 so it might not be worth the money.  They might have better prices for individuals though. 

[Halftime Hope]

11 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

Can you hire an assessor, like banks use when you buy a house?  I think ours was around $500 so it might not be worth the money.  They might have better prices for individuals though. 

Thanks for the thought. I need to do this without it being spendy. 

I'll use the comps myself now that I know I have to go back in time (3 months). I was hoping for an easy-to-use free app, and I assumed it would be current.

My son-in-law used an app that knew scary amounts of info about properties when they were buying a house, but that had a subscription.  I might look into a trial period.  ??