OT - Urgent!!! Need quick real estate input

[somedumbguy]

Your agent can answer all of these questions. Or should, I should say. If your agent doesn't know this stuff, I'd recommend getting a new one.

This. I bought and sold a house lat year and my agent was able to give me opinions with confidence. If you don't trust your agent you should get a new one. No recent sales comps is not really a good answer. Your agent should be able to provide somethhing to help you make a decision. Something has sold in the area in the last year. Something must have been listed. Even if it is not exact you can see what the differences are and try to determine what the value is to you.

To answer your question like others have said, Don't rely on tax assessments. There can be a ton of reasons why they are different.

[GOTA]

In Connecticut the tax assessment is always significantly lower than market value. A house assessed at $300k could easily sell for $600k

[MarkS]

zillow should give estimates on neighboring houses also but it's just guidance and each house could have individual reasons why it is higher or lower.

Zillow also can show you the actual recent selling price of houses in the area, if you don't trust their estimates.

[Baltimoreboy]

You can also look it up on the Maryland assessments/taxation page.
That will tell you how much the current owners paid for it and when.

http://sdatcert3.resiusa.org/rp_rewrite/

[wickedsolo]

Cool. Thanks guys!

[Strange Bru]

Tax assessments are always lower than what the purchase price. Your property taxes are based off of the assessment which are not calculated as often as you would think.

[blah3]

Also some tax assessments are based on some sort of formula. As earlier posters noted, tax assesment could be significantly less. I know my house in PA is less than half of value.

Actually I would not be too concerned about it, because the bank you are taking your loan from will ask for an appraisal of the house you are purchasing, to protect themselves from people paying way too much for property. They won't loan you money for a 400,000 home if it is only worth 300,000, even if you put a lot down.

[RavenScallywag]

Yeah, tax assessments are always way off from the market. Sadly...my tax assessed value was pretty high compared to my home's value. But I plan in dying in this home anyway, so with my recent refinance saving me money anyway (I bought when interest rates were f-ing ridiculous and got interest only ARM to start, so I am finally back in a P&I Fixed rate loan while saving about 200 per month), i'm not paying as much attention to it now.

[GOTA]

We just had the assessment from the town done for the first time in 4 years. Pretty much every property came in lower than the last time. The town of course doesn't want to lose any revenue so they just raised the mill rate to end up with an increase. Nothing like paying higher taxes on a property they say is worth less.

[Rxdoxx]

Also ask the agent what effect sale price has on property tax in that area.
You may find the county re-evaluating the property and raising the assessment/tax based on new sale price, but I don't really know how things are handled out there, just something to ask about.