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Anticipating further increase in the number of repossession houses, a local government in Arizona approved a request to adjust property values on almost 95,000 taxable lands in the area.
The Washington County Equalization Board approved a proposal by Washington County Assessor Lee Ann Kizzat to make some adjustment on property values of 95,000 taxable lands to alleviate the foreclosure crisis.
Kizzard said that she expects the initiative to trim the number of repossession houses to really take hold this year compared with the previous year. Arkansas CAMA Technology project manager Don Horton, who is involved with appraisals in the Washington County’s Assessor’s Office, said that based on his observation of county parcels, many homeowners really need the adjustment of property values.
He said that there were as many as 400 foreclosures in the parcels that he inspected since the first month of 2008. According to industry experts, the housing boom in 2007 turned into a repossession houses crisis the following year. This resulted to various property value adjustments when the county’s assessor was given permission to change the values of properties in the area.
Horton said that the board may have adjusted 7,000 or 8,000 the previous year, and he expects to see more adjustments this year.
Meanwhile, some members of the Equalization Board, including Chairman Wes Cannon, Joe Bailey, Carl Johnson, Luther Freeman and Mildred Runkle expressed their concerns over the property reappraisal in Benton County.
The board asked Kizzar for explanation about the difference in the number of parcels between Washington County and Benton County which has 150,000. Kizzar said that the two counties should not be compared, adding that every county has its own reappraisal cycle. She said that Washington County’s 2007 reappraisal was based on sales the previous year while Benton reappraised last year based on sales of 2007.
She pointed out that it was in 2007 that the foreclosure problem started and Washington County was stuck with property values appraised during the peak of the housing market while Benton is preparing to reappraise based on lowered property values.
Meanwhile, property values are expected to drop in the duplex sector where a great number of properties are reported but sales are scarce because of the abundant supply of low-priced repossession houses.