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In 2010 taxes went up 15% from $60 to $69 also condominiums up in the Heights are paying that much as well for a 700 sq footer. I hope condominium owners don't get screwed right now condos are at half the assessed value of regular homes here in J.C. In addition, each area will reflect the market value of the district they live in.

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I would not do that. The assessment company will just assess you home at the highest possible rate and it will be up to you to call them on it.

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Brewster, I think you will find that for the HEIGHTS you are in line with what other 3 families pay.

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At typical downtown $500/sq ft your place is worth 337,500, my 3 family is only worth maybe $50k or so more. even if yours isn't quite a $500/ft place, you're still paying much less per $ value than me. This uneveness is what the reval is all about.

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Wow-- I pay close to $4k on a one bedroom (675 sq ft) downtown (no abatement). I bought in 1997. My taxes have doubled in 15 years.

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Interesting theory. I never called after they left a note in the Heights. I've done no exterior work at all but the inside is nicer than most of the wrecked old rentals in the hood. I'm paying $8400 on a 3 family. I think that's a little high, but I've not made a study of it. I do know there are similar places Downtown worth twice as much with only a thousand or 2 more taxes.

I'm sure it's up thread, but here's a link for any nosy types like me who wants to know what their neighbors paid for their house and what they're paying in tax. Just type in the street address http://tax1.co.monmouth.nj.us/cgi-bin ... &out_type=0&district=0906

The inspector is hoping you aren't home.
I spoke to mine when he came to our house some months ago.
The inspectors get a flat fee per house, I think it was something like $8. If they come in they get paid more, by about $2 I think.
They don't care if they come in it your home or not, coming in takes more time and the pay is not commensurate.
Further, they only care about: condition of the kitchens and bathrooms, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms and if you basement is finished or unfinished.

My neighbors called in response to a card on their door and scheduled a time for the inspector to come back. The person just never showed. All attempts to contact him since have failed.

I have very little faith in this process. My house looks awful on the outside but is renovated inside so I think I will take my chances on not letting them in. We already pay higher taxes then most on the block.

My inspector left a card on my door with his mobile phone number, when I called him he was accomodating and pretty much offered to come at any time I wanted.

Robin.

I am curious about other JCLister's experience with these lately...

I came home from work to an inspector putting a tag on my door saying he would come back Friday afternoon. I asked why he couldn't just do the inspection now and he told me he "wasn't prepared" but that if I wasn't there Friday at that time he would inspect it from the outside...I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not but I can't exactly take time off to sit home for his 4 hour window!!!

Any thoughts on if it is better to let them inside or not???? I was so annoyed he wouldn't just do what he had to do when I say him!

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Great, have you actually though of where this leads monetarily? If we want to maintain the same tax base (lets not get into a different argument about reducing it and finding alternative sources), you propose to tax a high rise block at the same rate as a block of single family houses. So then the taxes of the single families will need to rise tremendously to reach the previous tax base of those 2 blocks added together. This is a good idea how? There is not enough undeveloped land in JC whose taxes would rise to mitigate this.

Once in awhile I can agree with you borisp. And in principle I do on this one!

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Good tax system should make taxes depend on the value of the land, - not on the value of the building.

Unless, of course we want to live in a dirty city with poorly maintained buildings slowly stagnating into the least desirable piece of property. If this is what we want, than sure thing - we should punish people for improving their houses - by taxing them on the value of the house.

Let 'em regret every dollar they spend on improvements!

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I suppose that's good news for those of us who have diligently improved our property, bad news for this thing having much basis in reality. Not that I've ever been really impressed by the bank appraisals either. One compared a brick building to frame buildings with no compensation for structure. Everyone knows brick is worth more, except apparently an appraiser.

I'm on 8th Street. They just left 5 minutes ago.

Has anyone heard of property taxes actually being lowered? Or is this just a ruse to raise them again?

They just inspected our building. We are downtown on 2nd st.

As others have indicated, it was swift. My husband said they basically counted the number of kitchens, bedrooms, and bathrooms and called it a day.

Looking for any updates on this topic. Has anyone had any experience getting their condo inspected? Did the inspector require anyone from the board be present?

Realty Appraisal just visited us 20 minutes ago for their inspection. All the houses on our street are identical so it took him about 5 minutes. Now that he's gone I realize I should have made him look closer at the condition of the kitchen and one bathroom. Neither have been renovated recently. I guess all we can do for now is wait.

Funny story about the idiots at Realty Appraisal Company. I have friends who live down in Society Hill. The Realty Appraisal Company has been down there for the last few weeks ringing bells and leaving notices. This is what is funny. Society Hill has 3 phases with about 1,600 units in total. There are maybe 10 different types of units. Owners are NOT allowed to do major alterations to the interiors of the units. A lot of the units are pushing 20 years old so some owners are now putting in updated kitchens and maybe new tile in the bathrooms. That?s it.

How RA could be so freakin? stupid to waste their time and energy on Society Hill? Are you telling me that a newer kitchen would add that much more to an appraisal? You can tell what type of unit it is by the address, outside view, and master plan. THERE ARE ONLY TEN TYPES! APPRAISE ONE OF EACH OF THE TEN. NOT THE 1,600. Duh! Why bother actually going into each unit? Does the way an owner furnished a condo unit add to the appraisal? Does the type of freakin? wall covering and color of the paint also?

And didn?t RA said in their bid that JC will easy to do because all of the condo?s are basically that same?a.k.a.. the DTJC condo towers.


yeah...I found this on the jersey city independent site ?interesting I thought there were way more properties in JC.

?We did a lot of analysis before we submitted our bid,? he said. ?Out of 51,000 properties, about 14,000 are condos, and many of those ? if not most ? are long-term tax-abated.?

?It?s not that you don?t apprise those, but it doesn?t require the same amount of expense on staffing on our part for inspections,? he explained further. ?It is [our knowledge of the] condos and townhouses in Jersey City that enabled us to hone in on a lower bid process.?



What a Joke! JC does it again! Someone really should investigate that contract award to RA...it smells!

Five months into a projected 18-month long tax revaluation process, Jersey City has requested a one year extension from Hudson County to give Realty Appraisal Company more time to complete the revaluation.

?The Tax Assessor has formally requested with the County Board of Taxation a one year extension for the City to conduct the property tax revaluation after it became apparent that a fair and comprehensive assessment could not be conducted within the current timeframe,? said Mayor Healy. ?A variety of technical issues, including a lengthy reconciliation of the City?s tax maps and higher-than-anticipated inspection refusals contributed to this delay.?

According to City Spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill, Hudson County has granted the extension, which will project Realty to complete the process by May 1, 2014.

But the hold-up is the latest hitch in a plan that residents and some on the Council have questioned from the start, and the delay has given new life to the debate over whether the city should have pursued a revaluation in the first place. The revaluation is costing the city $3.15 over a five year period.

?Part of the problem is a lack of communication,? said Ward C Councilwoman Nidia Lopez, one of the three Council members to vote against the measure to hire Realty Appraisal back in April of 2011. The company began the revaluation in September before it became clear they would need more time earlier this month.

?If only 10% of 50,000 properties have been assessed so far, isn?t this a bad indication as far as their effectiveness? It doesn?t make sense, something doesn?t feel right,? she continued.

?We gave this company $3.2 million, and if they?re not doing the job, can they reimburse our money so we can re-invest it?? she asked. ?They can get the money back next year.?

Realty hosted a forum to explain the process and to allay concerns among residents about what the revaluation could mean for their tax bill back in May of 2011, but concerns remained among residents.

Lopez said the problems stemmed from a ?lack of communication? due in part because ?not everyone reads the paper and not everyone attends Council meetings.? But unquestionably, perceptions of crime tie in, she said.

?I received calls from renters who did not understand why a realty company from West New York, which doesn?t have the word Jersey City anywhere, went into their homes,? she said. ?People are afraid of what?s going on right now with the crime status.?

The opinion was echoed by resident John Seborowski, who said at last Wednesday?s Council meeting that ?homeowners [are] afraid to allow inspectors into their homes? because of perceptions of crime. ?If we can?t afford additional police presence, why are we spending $3 million on an unneeded revaluation??

The problems facing the inspectors were predicted by former Planning Board member Jeff Kaplowitz, who back in April said he recalled similar problems when the city undertook a revaluation in 1988. He also criticized the approach outlined by Realty Appraisal, the firm hired to do the reval, as being insensitive Jersey City?s demographics.

?It?s really obnoxious that you have a company that says, ya know, we?ll tax at the highest rate possible if we can?t get [into a property] and deal with it later,? Kaplowitz said. ?This is a city with a lot of immigrants, a lot of people scared to open their doors ? and these are many of the people who will be penalized with higher taxes.?

At the time, resident Yvonne Balcer also argued against the reval, and issued a warning to the council members by noting that ?none of the council members who voted for the reval last time were re-elected.?

She added that the process by which residents can appeal assessments would cause significant financial difficulty for everyone but the wealthy.

?In order to appeal, you must pre-pay taxes from previous years,? she said. ?Last time homeowners got pushed out because of the reval. It?s a real burden on people who pay the real share of taxes in Jersey City.?


http://www.jerseycityindependent.com/ ... ion-is-extended-one-year/

Did they already pay $3.2m or how much they paid so far to this firm? What stops this firm to go to court and collect the money?

No mystery why this is happening: when the mayor first undertook the reval, he wasn't running for re-election. Now that he is, punting this deep into 2013 is politically advantageous since a major tax increase just before election is suicide. I'm sure he asked his friend (and former B.A.) Brian O'Reilly to drag his feet on this. As has been pointed out already, whether or not people let inspectors into their homes is irrelevant.

What difference does it make whether they come in or not because when they do come in, the inspectors are not doing a proper inspection anyway. The guy who came to my house, looked at the first floor & started to leave. I asked him what about the second floor, attic & basement. He said he didn't have to look because the second floor is the same as the first. In my case, the second floor is entirely different. I made him look at the second floor, attic & basement. He did the same half ass inspection with at least 2 of my other neighbors. This means that anyone who has an illegal apartment is going to get a pass only because accurate floor by floor descriptions of a house are not being turned over. This reval is a joke. And yes, I made a complaint about how the inspectors weren't inspecting the way we were told they would be.

the sooner they get this done the better. housing prices will start going back up at some point and the closer to the bottom of the market we are the lower our taxes will be.

I was told at my block association meeting by city hired assessment company Reality Appraisals that if the home owner did not let them in then they would assess the property at the highest amount which would force the home owner to make a special appointment for them to come and do the assessment. Even city tax assesor Ed Toloza was present at the meeting. Is the City of J.C. even ready for this reval ? Perhaps they should shoot for 2015 at least if they are done earlier it will look good and no one would complain, plus the tax collection would stay at the same assesment.

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Especially as they don't notify the landlord of multifamilies either. But they do the same for other inspections, if your tenants don't tell you about the notices and you're not there often, you'll just never know.

I thought I remember someone on JC List saying that they just show up--there's no notice beforehand so you don't know to be home when they come. That makes no sense to me.

The city today formally requested that the Hudson County Board of Taxation allow a one-year extension for the city to conduct the reval, which was expected to be completed by the end of September, with new assessments effective for 2013.
In a statement, Mayor Jerramiah Healy said the city could not conduct the reval in the current timeframe because of problems updating its tax maps and because of the number of homeowners who did not allow inspectors in their homes.
http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... y_requesting_one-yea.html

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Sorry, I am just not that kind of guy. My blood doesn't boil when I see people increasing the value of their property. Even when by the millions of dollars.

No, really, I am absolutely cool with that. I do not see taxes as a way to make developers pay for this affront of making money.

I think of taxes more as the way to pay fairly for the city services...

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Only if they break the law. This has been said earlier in the thread, the reval explicitly is supposed to be revenue neutral, the final tax base will be the same as it started, just differently distributed.
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So, you are shocked that property is taxed at it's actual value if you sold it, not the value of the land or what you bought it for before you improved it. In your universe, someone should be able to build an apartment building, increasing the value of the property by millions of dollars, and only get taxed on the value of the lot?