Man, that's one very expensive hobby.In my area the houses in the historic district sell for a super premium price.I've restored an historic house when it would have been cheaper to tear it down and start over, but my assessment was that the long term value was much more promising with the old house restored.But I see gorgeous old houses in the slum areas of some of the big cities and they wouldn't be worth the effort to restore them.

:D After a couple of these I really knew what I was looking at and could assess a property fairly quickly.

There are some similar properties in the area that are assessed for somewhere between 150-180k.

Tax assessed value is always way below 80% market value.

You've missed the Jan 15 deadline for this year, so you'll have to do it next year if you can't come to an agreement.Note that the assessed values and taxes don't go in lock step.

Nikki,It is true that you may have to go there as I have also researched most of the counties there and found that the all of the Counties do not have the Assessment data online.This is a long shot, but it MAY HELP: If you have the property addresses, goto googlemaps.com and plug in the address and see if there is anything that may help you.

Assessed values do not necessarily reflect its current value (after all, it's worth what somebody is willing to pay for it).

#2- visit your local tax assessment office or website and learn when will the next tax sale or foreclosure sale take place and you'll find buyers there.

Marcus, almost universally the tax assessments and the actual value of the property have nothing to do with one another.It is best to only use the comparables (similar property within 1/4 mile of the subject property and sales within the last 6 months) to evaluate the value and then make your offer price based on those comps and of course the cost of repairs, etc.Best of luck!

I have created a very comprehensive checklist for myself that I go through for each property.Having said that, it would be very nice to have a mentor to guide me through, but I am not paying someone that kind of money.