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ktxhopem3276 t1_j6lbvd1 wrote

Reply to comment by burritoace in School Me on the Property Tax Assessment Appeal by 3RudySquared

Frequency of assessment has no effect either way on newcomer tax if the common level ratio is accurate. Most interior modifications don’t require permits unless they are structural. The housing market is heavily weighted toward flashy cosmetic updates to drive up the price. Nobody wants assessments to be invasive interior inspections. Many exterior modifications can be non obvious like roof and window replacements which don’t require permits. In a low priced neighborhood, renovations can double the house price with no permit updates

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burritoace t1_j6ldbqr wrote

>Frequency of assessment has no effect either way on newcomer tax if the common level ratio is accurate.

There is no CLR if assessments happen on a short, regular schedule. The whole thing is a dumb workaround for a crappy, inconsistent system.

>Most interior modifications don’t require permits unless they are structural.

All building systems typically require permits if they are modified/upgraded. Most substantial interior improvements require structural work in Pittsburgh homes.

>The housing market is heavily weighted toward flashy cosmetic updates to drive up the price.

And these are captured when a house is reassessed at sale.

> Nobody wants assessments to be invasive interior inspections.

That's fine because most interior cosmetic renovations don't have a huge impact on property value.

>Many exterior modifications can be non obvious like roof and window replacements which don’t require permits.

These improvements alone don't have a significant impact on property value. If you put a new roof on your house you won't get anywhere close to 100% of the cost out anytime soon. The same goes for windows, unless you enlarge them (which requires a permit).

>In a low priced neighborhood, renovations can double the house price with no permit updates

A proportional doubling in a low-price neighborhood has less of an impact on the overall tax levied on that property. And these improvements are less likely to have that impact in a neighborhood that is otherwise less desirable (which causes the low prices in the first place).

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ktxhopem3276 t1_j6lfelg wrote

Cosmetic updates don’t require a permit and can be substantially expensive. It is questionable tax policy to tax them one way for new buyers and another way for current owners. You don’t have a magical solution no matter how much you try to wish away how expensive cosmetic updates are

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burritoace t1_j6lgibr wrote

You can keep repeating this and I'll keep repeating the response I've already given. You're not even offering an alternative here!

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ktxhopem3276 t1_j6lgqqk wrote

Because cosmetic repairs are obviously expensive and you are just pretending they aren’t.

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burritoace t1_j6mcexw wrote

Are you aware that an improvement's expense doesn't lead to a 1:1 change in property value? It would be silly to demand that every tiny change in a property's value be captured, and new paint or carpet or whatever lead to tiny changes in value, even if they might cost tens of thousands. Value in this context only exists in relation to the rest of the market, which is why reassessing at sale and regularly thereafter is the best approach.

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ktxhopem3276 t1_j6mqkzx wrote

You are just waving you magic wand to shrink the significance of non permitted changes just because you don’t like hearing that your preferred solution isn’t as clever and amazing as you think it is.

3257 Latonia Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15216 sold for $230k for 1520 sqft

3215 Latonia Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15216 sold for $130k for 1450 sqft

Can you guess which one had cosmetic upgrades? It has new carpet, hardwoods, whole house repainted, kitchen cabinets, and bathroom. If they are reassessed at sale price they will pay $90k more in taxes over thirty years even though the smart buyer can spend the same amount renovating his house right after buying it and even just rent it forever instead of ever having to sell if he wants to move elsewhere. Also businesses who can who hire lawyers structure leases and sales to avoid reassessments and taxes. More frequent assessments will make the system a little more fair at an expensive of larger bureaucracy. The clr could be fined tuned by neighborhood boundaries and the county could stop lying about its value by handpicking sales that make it look lower than it is.

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burritoace t1_j6mrijo wrote

Truly bizarre stuff. If one house has had work done and increased in value then it should pay more in taxes. Surely you don't think those houses are worth the same amount? The CLR and irregular assessments are the preconditions for these disparities and you are coming out in defense of them.

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ktxhopem3276 t1_j6ms9s1 wrote

But it’s a loophole to just remodel after the sale if there are annual assessments. I don’t know how you would find these remodels without annual interior inspections of every property in the county.

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burritoace t1_j6mxvg1 wrote

The exact same loophole exists now, except in an even worse form as it is compounded by the shoddy CLR.

>I don’t know how you would find these remodels without annual interior inspections of every property in the county.

You wouldn't, just like you don't now. The system doesn't depend on catching 100% of paint jobs in the county. It would catch larger renovations, and even some cosmetic changes are visible from outside and could be picked up in regular assessments. And again, the reassessment at sale (when the most aggressive property investors attempt to realize their gains) can catch many more situations.

You're making a mountain out of a molehill to defend the status quo, but that molehill exists even under the status quo! It doesn't make sense.

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ktxhopem3276 t1_j6mzwqp wrote

That person didn’t pay $100k more for the paint job. That’s just waving a magic wand to pretend my point doesn’t exist. Non permitted renovations in the $50k range seem to be getting crazy high premiums in the last couple years. It’s entertaining listening to you refuse to admit the basic situation of the current housing market because you are obsessed with having a solution that has no downsides

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burritoace t1_j6n2bzg wrote

>Non permitted renovations in the $50k range seem to be getting crazy high premiums in the last couple years.

This depends entirely on the location of the house and other factors, and the difference between assessed and true value (before sale) still comes down largely to the fact that the last assessment was in 2012 and doesn't account for vast changes in the housing market since then.

The work in that house isn't limited to a paint job but you are committed to missing the point here. And I don't know what "perfect solution" you are imagining here, I've already acknowledged that no solution is ideal. Only one of us thinks the current model is even remotely acceptable and it's not me! Please go project your goofy arguments on to someone else.

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ktxhopem3276 t1_j6n407q wrote

you are exaggerating the effectiveness of annual reassessments to feel superior while ignoring the costs and deploying hyperbolic strawmans to avoid admitting your solution is mediocre and full of loopholes. it has implementation challenges and bureaucratic waste, while calculating a clr for each neighborhood is orders of magnitude cheaper than reassessing every house annually

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ktxhopem3276 t1_j6n5ypl wrote

If a democrat tries to implement annual assessments it will be committing career suicide and hand the county to republicans. Democrats could fix the clr with less bad publicity and spend political capital on more important issues. Let a Republican figure out the shitty property tax system because they refuse to raise income taxes

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ktxhopem3276 t1_j6mtvpi wrote

We could get rid of school property taxes and only use property taxes for municipality and county services and instead fund schools using an equitable and just distribution of state income tax (double it and make it progressive) The city has school property taxes half of most surrounded municipalities. That works for the city because it doesn’t have as many retired people as the suburbs.

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burritoace t1_j6mxgyg wrote

Lol I'm in favor of changing the way schools are funded but this is a total digression

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