And that house in Maplewood is probably also sitting on a half acre, if its located among the other houses with $30k property taxes. It's not just your house that makes up property taxes - there is the property that the house sits on as well.

Many (most?) people with children have more than one - that $21k Icechute is paying could easily be $29k... or $37k.

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But they get good schools, little crime, litter, vandalism, etc. They get cops who actually show up the same day you call them and elected officials who can finish their terms without having to go off to prison.

Bottom line is that everyone should pay their fair share, but no one should have to pay their fair share and feel they are getting raped at the same time.

I'm paying 13K in taxes and 8K on private school. Guess what: that's a whopping 21K for the privilege of living in Healy's circus. The only saving grace is a (hopefully) decent profit once the kid is out of school and I'm out of this hellhole of a city.

I really wanted this place to be all I know it could be, but it's been over 20 years and it just ain't happening.

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Cmon, I know you mean well, but I'm tired of this hyperbole! This isn't a simple issue, and the reval has to be done eventually. A senior who owns a property here outright is sitting on a pile of money. They will not "lose their homes" and if they choose to sell, it will not be at a "loss". Should they not choose to sell there are all sorts of ways, such as a reverse mortgage, to leverage their equity in that property to pay it's taxes without having to sell. It's absurd to say that someone who bought a house 30 years ago for $50k that's now worth $1m is a pauper unable to pay the correct taxes and will be left homeless by a reval.

The only people really screwed are those on a fixed income who leveraged their properties to the max recently and somehow no longer have that equity at their disposal. There's no free lunch and maybe they're better off in a rental if they're that deep in debt.

MDM: It sounds like you got hosed unless they're like 1500 ft lofts. I have a heights 3 family paying $6k. Small rentals got caught in the vise between low rents and sky hi condo conversion prices. No one would ever pay some of those prices for a buy and hold. Same thing even happened for rent controls, cash conversions buyers running prices way beyond what a bank would appraise a place for based on rents, essentially shutting small buy and hold landlords like me out of the market.

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4 Family in the Heights. Its a big building.. but not that big. As for the suburbs... they aren't much better. I have one customer that pays over $30k on a home (Maplewood) that is about 3,200 sqft. Its a big house, but by no means a mansion.

$23K? Is this a brownstone or an apartment building? I hope it's not one the typical brownstones (2 family) because I'll definitely be screwed. I don't mind paying my share fair of taxes but I do want something in return such as good schools and unfortunately in JC it seesm as though we are definitely not getting our value. If I had to pay $15+ in taxes, I might as well move to the suburbs.

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This is how it is supposed to work. I got re-evaluated back in 2005 at the height of the housing boom. I appealed and got it reduced some. Still, I am paying about $23k a year.

Curious as to what the re-evaluation will reduce it some more since housing prices have dropped much faster in the heights than in the downtown areas.

The thing that really blew about my last valuation is that rent income was not a factor. 4 families and under were evaluation strictly on the sale of similar properties. The bubble threw the rent income vs. sale price ratio completely out of whack. So if your rents didn't cover your expenses (due to the tax increase) it didn't matter.. you still got hosed at tax time.

I suspect Jersey City may see a flurry of tax appeals after this re-evaluation and a serious reduction in its ratables. This happened after the last real estate bubble popped in the late 80's / early 90's.

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I think if you dont let an inspector in your house they have to assume you have made all possible improvements.

The only way property taxes go up across a city is if they raise them (which they have). A re-val is separate from this, it's goal is to make sure everyone is paying their fair share of taxes. I think it will work like this: Since 1988 if your home has gone up in value more than the average home in Jersey City, you get a tax increase, if your home has not increased as much as the average home in JC, you get a tax decrease, if it's on par with the trend in JC, your taxes are unchanged...right? If so this should help many people outside of downtown.

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Jack Kelly only works part time as BA for Jersey City, spreading his joy on other municipalities so how much could he mess up.

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The elderly will be the worst hit, most losing their homes, or selling at a loss to move away.

With Healy and his new BA Jack Kelly in charge, I predict disaster.

Reval pain from 1988 still lingers
What does the past predict for the future?

by Ricardo Kaulessar
Reporter Staff Writer

The year was 1988. George H.W. Bush was president, the stock market had just crashed, ?Who Killed Roger Rabbit? was a big box office hit, and Kirk Gibson homered on bum legs to become a World Series hero. It was also the year of the last tax revaluation in Jersey City, when fresh appraisals of all real estate increased the total value of all taxable property in the city from $800 million, determined by a revaluation in the early 1970s, to $5.6 billion.

However, the 1988 revaluation also had residents, particularly in downtown Jersey City, up in arms over what they charged was an error-filled revaluation that jacked up the values of their homes and led to significant increases in their taxes. City officials at the time suggested they could challenge the results of the revaluation in court by appealing the new assessments in order to lower their property taxes.
_____________

?I think I?m going to get killed again with higher taxes.? ? Mia Scanga
________

The revaluation had long-lasting effects on the city. Another revaluation has not been done since that time, but the new one gets underway officially in January. And the fear of residents who lived through the first reval is that the next one will hurt them again, while commercial properties will see their taxes remain the same or decrease, as they did in 1988, and properties with tax abatements would again be immune, just as they were in 1988.

Mia Scanga, who lives in the same four-family home she purchased in 1983 and was one of the co-founders of the Jersey City Coalition for Fair Taxation that went after the city in 1988 over the revaluation, now regrets that she has not sold her home in the past five years, because she fears the worst.

?I?m angry at myself because I didn?t get out of this town before they came back with another reval,? Scanga said. ?I think I?m going to get killed again with higher taxes.?

Reviewing last reval

The 1988 revaluation started because the New Jersey Constitution requires that all real property be assessed for taxation according to the same standard of value. State law requires that property in municipalities be brought up to, or as close as possible to, 100 percent of market value.

City officials such as Mayor Anthony Cucci, who was in office at the time, and the city?s business administrator Jerome Lazarus, said property values were undervalued and the prices of homes had gone up considerably due to the influx of newcomers coming from Manhattan into downtown Jersey City who were paying higher than average prices.

The revaluation at that time was carried out by a company called Real Property Appraisers, who signed a contract in 1984 with the city during the administration of then-Mayor Gerald McCann.

Homes across the city were inspected to evaluate the condition of the properties inside and out.

But after the appraisals were done, that?s when the trouble started.

Complaints arose when residents saw their tax bills increase several-fold, and questioned the validity of the revaluation. A group of downtown Jersey City homeowners formed a group called the Jersey City Coalition for Fair Taxation and started a campaign to have the revaluation thrown out.

One charge was that numerous homes were not visited at all by an inspector, or that inspectors only came to the front door and just asked questions of the home owner.

Audrey Winkler, one of the other founders of the coalition along with Scanga and John Mercer (now an assistant business administrator for the city) said last week that coalition members also saw other problems with the revaluation.

?When we did our research, we found that the areas hit hardest by the revaluation were places where Mayor Cucci did not receive voter support when he ran for mayor,? said Winkler, who lived with her husband in a two-family home in downtown Jersey City. The couple moved to West Orange in 1996 but still own their old home, located near Van Vorst Park.

Winkler said despite the coalition?s best efforts, they could not bring a case into a state Tax Court and residents ended up having to get their taxes appealed on an individual basis. Her taxes doubled due to the revaluation to upwards of $11,000 per year.

But former City Councilman Jaime Vazquez, who represented the downtown area during the revaluation, said his part of the town as well as a section of the Jersey City Heights was not hit hardest due to political concerns.

?That sounds like a conspiracy to me,? Vazquez said. ?The reality was the areas hit hardest were the ones where home prices went up considerably because of their view of Manhattan.?

Why did it take so long?

Winkler, during her interview, was surprised to hear that a revaluation has not happened in 22 years.

But for local residents like Scanga, Vazquez and longtime administration critic Yvonne Balcer, the length of time that has passed from the last revaluation to the current one is not unusual because of the political fallout. It is cited as one of the main reasons why Anthony Cucci was not reelected in 1989.

?Basically every administration passed it on to the next administration,? Vazquez said. ?But I think that?s wrong to have this much time pass because the real estate values change so much.?

Actually, past administrations really didn?t have to worry about years lapsing to do a follow-up revaluation. According to a New Jersey Department of Treasury spokesperson, there is no set period of years required by state law before a revaluation has to be done again.

Political observers questioned whether the revaluation could have been put off a few more years until after current Mayor Jerramiah Healy left office in 2013, because some saw it as ?political suicide? that could hurt any chances of his running for a third term if he has a notion of doing so. It is believed that Healy didn?t come up with the idea but instead various city officials caught his ear and sold the revaluation as a way of bringing in more taxes by raising the value of the city?s entire real estate.

Reval redux?

Did the current city government learn from the 1988 revaluation to see how the current one should be carried out?

Surprisingly, city spokesperson Jennifer Morrill said that is the case.

In a statement issued by Morrill, she said, ?We reviewed news articles from that time, spoke to people who either worked with the city or were involved from a community aspect, and were able to identify problems in that revaluation. One of the main lessons that were gained was that the public needed to be informed early on and kept apprised of each step of the process. That is why we created a reval brochure that we mailed out earlier this year and have posted information on our website.?

However, Balcer, who along with her husband Charles saw the taxes on their home go from $3,000 to $16,000 after the 1988 revaluation, is skeptical that the upcoming revaluation will not be any better on the homeowner regardless of how well it is carried out.

?It?s going to be the same, with downtown getting hit the hardest again, because you have homes selling in my neighborhood for almost a million and that?s going to bring up assessments,? Balcer said. ?And meanwhile homes selling in other parts of town have gone down considerably in value due to foreclosure, and assessments will be down.?

She also sees the unfortunate by-product of the last revaluation rearing its head again ? people are already quietly putting their homes for sale online and starting to worry about facing higher taxes.

Vazquez said the city should put together a commission with city officials and residents to make sure the revaluation is done properly with such aspects looked at as making sure at least 50 percent of the homes on a particular block are inspected before determining assessed values of properties. He recalled that the contract signed by the city in 1984 with Real Property Assessors had called for only 10 percent of homes to be inspected until the City Council stepped in to renegotiate the terms of the contract.

Winkler also hopes for more transparency, as she now wonders about her Jersey City home and what will happen if a new assessment is tallied.

Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.

Read more: Hudson Reporter - Reval pain from 1988 still lingers What does the past predict for the future

ALSO

http://hudsonreporter.com/view/full_s ... ffort-to-reassess-homes-?

http://hudsonreporter.com/view/full_s ... igher--others-will-drop-?

http://hudsonreporter.com/view/full_s ... y-City-is-doing-a-reval-?

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Yeah he's confused, but unfortunately there's a LOT of hooey being thrown on both sides of the reval issue.

As for Gaughan, though I'm a Downtowner, next election cycle I'm donating to his opposition, presumably someone on Fulop's slate. This clown needs to go.

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Gaughan, as usual, has completely mistaken what the reval is supposed to do, which is equalize tax payments across all owners, NOT to raise more taxes.

He keeps saying that because the average tax-to-market value ratio is 25 percent, that the city is only collecting 25% of the taxes it should be.

FLAT OUT WRONG!

The tax rate will be adjusted downward to compensate for all property being appraised at 100% of current market value. The total amount of tax collected by the city is NOT supposed to change because of a reval.

Gaughan continues to work under a basic and total misunderstanding of what the reval is.

It's way past time for this old man to move on.

Letter: No hysterics on revaluation
By The Jersey Journal
May 27, 2010, 5:05AM
Journal file photo
Jersey City Councilman William Gaughan
Recently, realtor Jeff Kaplowitz launched an ill-informed attack on me in these pages regarding the proposed property revaluation in Jersey City. His facts are wrong and thus unsurprisingly, so are his conclusions.
He demands that Hudson County order all municipalities conduct property revaluations at the same time as Jersey City. This, he insists, will reduce the amount Jersey City contributes to the county tax levy.
That is nonsense.
By law, the state of New Jersey evaluates property annually in all 566 municipalities using market data. It then provides counties with the current market value of properties so counties can calculate their assessments. Assessed value (what is set by a municipal property valuation) is NOT the basis for this calculation, "equalized" or market value is how county taxes are assessed. The state collects market data and "equalizes" the value of properties in each municipality for each county. So what Mr. Kaplowitz proposes is already done, every year, and his use of this as a reason against a revaluation of property is painfully misinformed.
As someone who got into politics because I was furious over how the last property revaluation was botched nearly a quarter-century ago, the last thing I want is to put our city through a frivolous, unnecessary revaluation.
So why a revaluation now?
The answer is that Jersey City has a number of tax-abated waterfront properties that will become eligible for regular taxation over the next few years as their PILOTs (Payments In Lieu of Taxes) sunset. Without a revaluation, we will not be able to tax these relatively new, multimillion-dollar buildings at 100 percent of their value, but at 25 percent -- our current tax valuation ratio. This will cost the city huge amounts of revenue and unfairly burden smaller property owners.
We can go on as we are and lose huge amounts of potential revenue over the next decade as PILOT payments from tax-abated properties cease and these large, modern office buildings and residential complexes built in the late 1980s and early 1990s come on the tax rolls at a quarter of their true market value. Or we can attempt to carry out a fair, professional and well-executed revaluation that will capture that revenue.
The responsible choice should be clear -- if we can get our property owners to understand it over the din of those seeking to create hysteria in the name of political gain on this issue.
COUNCILMAN BILL GAUGHAN
WARD D
JERSEY CITY

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The City is going to solicit bids (RFP) from companies who can provide the reval services.

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It's done by outsiders, no doubt political contributors. But your concern about the city's Building inspectors is well founded, they won't hesitate to bully you and trample your rights.

Does anybody know if Jersey City is hiring an outside company to handle this reval?

Or will residents be subjected to having their homes inspected by employees of the building dept?

I ask because you know, JC inspectors leave much to be desired in the world of fairness.

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Hearing all those folks complaining about Healy and his Council is hilarious. Why did you vote for them? Or even better why did you not come out to vote and vote them out in the last election.

When has Healy and his Council ever been honest and upfront with the Jersey City residents of course they chose to hide the upcoming revaluation to their constituents while granting millions of dollars in abatements to developers that supported their political campaigns.

You get what you deserve when you let this gang get voted back in, so I hope all those that vote for Team Healy are proud of themselves, and those that did not vote a kicking themselves in the a**.

As for the mention of a recall, it will be happening soon against a few of the council persons as I know the team that is working on putting recall committees together ward by ward.

Much research has been done, the numbers to recall Healy or At-Large or too challenging and probably would fail, however recall by the wards are doable. I know the team is looking for folks in a couple of the wards to set up the three person committee that is needed. My understanding is that Ward C and Ward A have their committees set. No need to go after Ward B since that ward is up for election in November, so the other wards need the committee members.

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Under normal circumstances, I'd agree. Have you looked at this deal? The city has a second lien position on dollars $21,000,001 to $29 million (roughly) on a property that is appraised at $27.5 million "under normal market conditions." The appraisal goes on to say that given current economic and market conditions, which it expects to last at least another three years, the best course of action would be to delay development as the developer could never realize the appraised value given the market.

I'll bet you a fish taco that the city eats a significant amount of this guarantee, if not all of it.

I don't think they are quivering in their boots yet - check out the Shame on you City Council thread - they just rewrote the law on city cars so they CAN use them for personal use. Shameless and fearless.

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Not that I approve, but a loan guarantee isn't exactly a cash giveaway. You may be right that they are fearless, but I'm hoping not, especially after the federal sting.

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They just gave $8 million to a patron last night in front of a room full of witnesses. You think the internet scares them?

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Good point. What comes to my mind is 2 differences today. We have far more educated & empowered people living here who won't sit still for that crap, and we have the internet to link them to each other and the information.

I've been looking at the tax records of anyone I want from my home, when you used to have to go to the county offices in Journal Sq and pull out big books. Hopefully information availability will make a big difference to discourage politicians who think they can get away with such nonsense because they'll know it's not going to be a secret to anyone with a web connection just what their well connected neighbor is paying in taxes.

Here is something no one has discussed yet and it was a big problem back in 88.

We have to watch who the city hires to do this and who they are connected to.In 88 many well connected people in this city never got a visit from the company inspecting the homes and fell through the cracks on purpose.Political enemys were over assesed and had to file appeals which draged on for years.

The inspectors would sometimes go to the nicest home on the block and then assess every home on the block at the same rate.You all do realize they are going to come inside your house and open every door to see what you have.

My neighbor filled her basement bathroom with empty boxes so it would look like a closet.

I don't trust this this city hall bunch to run a hot dog stand much less a city wide re val.They new this needed doing but just like the tax increase they pushed it past the last election.

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It's not obvious to me in my wanderings through taxland. I have yet to come upon the kind of "order of magnitude" disparities that people talk about. Mostly it's 20-30% this way or that, and like I said, not in any predictable way if the guy who bought his condo 2 years later for more pays less than his neighbor.

I simply don't see the gross unfairness that will result in the kind of doubling, tripling or more that people fear. The townhouse bought in 79 for $10k is assessed at $100k which means at 26% it's being valued at 385K. Low, but one of it's twin neighbors sold for $515k last year and another for $650 in 07. So accounting for condition after 30 years of continuous occupancy it could even be close.

Do what I've done. Look at all the condos at an address, or pick a row of identical houses you know, (or find one by google street view) and look at when they bought and what they're paying. Find examples of someone grossly underpaying, I mean by half or more.

I'm not really sure, but my neighbor across the hall is asking $269k for her apt. Same square footage, slightly different layout. Like me, she hasn't done any major renovations.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad my property value went up and I'm all for paying my fare share. I'm just thinking about what Indomitus said:

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"We are taking this step for several reasons. First, state law requires that all real property to be assessed at or as near as possible to 100% of market value. Currently the average assessment ratio is at 26.75% of market value."
(5th paragraph of the doc. alek8 posted)

A very confusing statement. I assume the tax rate would have to be changed to reflect the removal of the "ratio" system to a "market value" system. I pay about 6.8% on my ratio assessed value. I figure that the tax rate on a home assessed at market rate would have to be around 1.7%, but there is no mention of that.

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You may well be correct, but that equalization rate jumping all over the place without reason and some assessment seemingly out of the blue, it makes me wonder what can be assumed. Will that 30% property see it's taxes go down? Who knows?

When I look at the taxes I think the reval is necessary just to correct all the mistakes and weird artifacts they've made. To compare to your place, I just saw the taxes on a house on the park bought in 95 for 144K. It's assessment hasn't changed since & it's taxes are only $9200. A condo I saw sold for 70% of another in the same building yet pays 30% MORE taxes! Go figure that one out.

It?s interesting ---- the Governor Christie is currently proposing a 2.5% cap on annual property tax increases.

Reported from the statewide meeting of mayors with Christie today in Atlantic City:

"Christie will propose legislation next week (for the upcoming November ballot) for a constitutional amendment that institutes the cap. If legislators pass the ballot question and if it?s approved by voters, municipalities will have to hold their property tax growth to 2.5% a year unless voters overrule it by referendum. Under Christie?s proposal, if a town raises property taxes less than the capped level one year, it will be able to bank those savings and exceed the cap in future years if necessary."

What?s ambiguous, however, is what this is actually means. Does it mean that no individual homeowner is to see an increase of more than 2.5%? Or does it mean that the municipality may not increase its total billable tax revenue by more than 2.5%? In the case of the latter, some individual homeowners could still see a substantial increase under a revaluation as long as the total city-wide ?tax receivables? do not exceed 2.5% from the previous fiscal year. Of course, others would simultaneously stay the same or see decreases, which is the expected result of revaluations.

Anyway, it would be great if it was the first explanation (that no individual homeowner is to see an increase of more than 2.5%), but I?m not optimistic.

Follow me here and tell me if this makes sense.....

I'm one of those with one of those rowhouses downtown near HP that was bought back in 1995. Price was 175K and building was reassessed to that same amount (through tax appeal) at that time.

Over the years, the assessment has risen to 198,000, (most recently last year) which is what it currently is and I am paying almost 14K in taxes.

If the current average assessed value is 26.75% of market value, that would work out to a market value for me of $740,187. And if the current market is 30% of what it was before the recession, that would have made a pre-recession value of about 960K, right in that "1 million dollar neighborhood" category that always get thrown around.

So am I right in concluding that I am not horrendously under assessed and that the hit might not be as bad as expected?

and so it begins....