All Forum Posts by: Allen Freeman

Excellent. Make sense. Yes I am west coast, looking at Ohio.

Got it, makes sense. So, basic lesson is dont rely on Zillow even for a pro forma. Need to go to assessor website and calculate it manually. Its still a bit of a black box though as for how the house will be assessed next time around. The assessed value is never close to market value, so if you are buying a house that hasn't transacted in 30 years, even if you get an accurate tax rate for your situation (say non owner occupied for example), what figure do you use for valuation? I had a 20 minute conversation at the assessors office, they really didnt have an answer.. "its up to the assessor".

When viewing property tax history on Zillow, I frequently see these huge jumps in property taxes from year to year, sometimes 100% increases (see attached example). Sometimes these are rehabbed houses, but many times I can see nothing that has happened that would justify such an increase. What am I seeing here? I am having a hard time trusting my analysis when I wonder whether my property tax budget could 2-5x in a year. Is this some kind of reporting error? FWIW, this is in the Akron OH area, but ive seen examples all over the country.