PORT ANGELES — What goes up must stay up, at least for another year.
The re-evaluations that Clallam County Assessor Pam Rushton’s office sent out in October for the West End of Clallam County don’t reflect the burst real estate bubble.
Property values in the West End increased about $200 million, Rushton said, and 340 owners have appealed their re-evaluations to the county board of equalization.
Assessments have gone up, while housing prices have gone down, because the assessor — by law — had to set her estimates as of last Jan. 1 on real estate prices that lagged behind the actual market by 12 to 18 months.
They take that long to make it from actual home sales into Rushton’s computer programs.
In other words, for property tax purposes, it’s still 2007 in Clallam County.
“You’re watching your investments go out the window, but you watch your house going up because it hasn’t caught up to that previous market,” she said last week.
Clallam’s assessments probably will begin to reflect collapsing real estate prices on next October’s re-evaluations.
Adding to the time-out-of-focus feeling is that the most recent re-evaluations focused on Clallam County’s West End, where property hadn’t been physically reinspected for six years.
One-sixth of the county’s real estate is examined annually, which this year meant Rushton’s staff inspected about 10,000 properties.
What many property owners don’t know is that property evaluations ¬– except for brand-new construction — have little to do with how much tax they pay.
Rushton also said she’d met some people who think her office receives all the property taxes levied by the county.
The reality is that the assessor’s office gets a small slice of a pie that’s mostly taken up by law and justice programs and by public works.
The county’s share of the whole tax statement also is fairly small, sharing the bill with the state of Washington, hospital districts, schools, fire districts and a long list of other government agencies.
“The county’s just one small portion of where your taxes go, Rushton said.
The county’s portion is $27 a month for a home valued at $250,000 to $300.000
As for the West End, property often depreciates faster there due to severe weather.
“Your roof probably won’t last as long out there as it would in Sequim,” Rushton said.
Tell assessor about it
A property owner must report destruction to the assessor.
“They need to let us know,” Rushton said, especially if their neighborhood isn’t due for re-inspection.
“We don’t see that they’ve torn something down or they’ve lost their roof or their house has been knocked off its foundation.”
Damage reports should be substantiated by documents from firefighters, law enforcement officers or insurance adjusters, the assessor said.
Rushton is requesting that real estate offices across the county share information on recent sales so she can factor the lower prices into her re-evaluations.
The Realtors may be more willing to tell her of losses in value than they were to inform her of rising prices.
“Homes were selling for more than they were actually worth,” she said, recalling one home that was worth $265,000 selling for $389,000.
“We are seeing some of those come back in foreclosures now.”
Still behind the times
Making the re-evaluations harder to understand was that Clallam County lagged — and some real estate agents say still lags — behind the rest of the country in falling home prices.
Still, the change seems catastrophic.
“No one expected the stock markets to drop,” she said.
“I’ve never seen it change this fast before.”
Rushton acknowledged that the system of re-evaluating properties to establish property tax rates is confusing.
“We have that every year,” she said. “People don’t understand the system.
“I wish I could sit down with 70,000 people [Clallam County’s population] and explain it to them.
“I’d like to see us do something like a town hall, to get people to come in and ask us questions.”
Until then, Rushton praised her staff with “huge kudos” for inspecting 8,600 properties in the West End.
East End properties from Diamond Point roughly to West Sequim Bay Road will receive on-site inspections next year, Rushton said.
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Reporter Jim Casey can be reached at 360-417-3538 or at jim.casey@peninsuladailynews.com.
