I think the answer to that question depends on who you ask!
The following information was taken directly from the Tax Assessor page on the Bernards Township (Basking Ridge) website, and summarizes the mission and procedures for determining tax assessments here in Basking Ridge:
- The Mission of the Office of Assessment strives to maintain a fair and equitable tax base for the community based on sound assessment practices. Our plan is to treat all property types and owners impartially.
- The Assessor is responsible for identifying and placing a value on every parcel of land within the confines of the Township’s borders. The values are derived through the formulation of models developed from closed comparable sales and uniformly applied to comparable housing styles for design, quality, and location. These values become the final assessed values for residential properties and should closely reflect 100% of market value.
- The final property assessed values are reviewed and updated on an annual basis. For tax year 2006 and thereafter, the annual program will continue. All assessments are based on market trends by neighborhood, styles, size as of October 1, of the pretax year. Ratable totals may increase or decrease depending on these trends and the property condition.
- All properties are scheduled for re-inspection on a four-year rotation, which enables the adjustment of our property data base for alterations and improvements that may not have had building permits. Any properties not physically inspected will be estimated based on typical attributes of comparable housing. Annual reassessing and the re-inspection process contribute to more equitable and uniform assessments throughout the Township.
I was thrilled to find that information on the website. I did not realize that the township strives to have assessments reflect market value at 100%. I knew that Basking Ridge assessed on a yearly basis and I knew that they compare “apples-to-apples” so to speak – by looking at neighborhoods with similar homes ie: a house on Peachtree Road won’t be compared to a house on Stockmar Drive and town homes are only compared to other town homes in the same development. I think that Bernards Township has 200 distinct neighborhoods delineated for this purpose.
I had also heard – I think while I was at a Jeffery Otteau seminar last fall – that assessements in Basking Ridge are about two years behind the market.
This afternoon, I reviewed closed sales from the last 12 months – excluding new construction which hadn’t been assessed. I calculated the ratio of sale price to assessed value and then averaged it. There were approximately 300 sales, the data was a bit inconsistent – depending on the list date of the property, some were compared to 2007 taxes and some were compared to 2008 taxes, but for purposes of our discussion, I’m not sure if that matters.
The average sale in Basking Ridge closed at a price that was 98% of tax assessment. I broke it down further by price range and then again by single family versus town home/condo. In the under $600,000 range, the average ratio was 96%; between $600,000 and $1,000,000 the average was 100% (that surprised me, so I calculated it twice!) The average for properties that sold over $1,000,000 was also 100%.
Basking Ridge Townhouses and condos sold at 98% of assessment (150 sales) and Basking Ridge single family homes also sold at 98% of assessment (142 sales)
What sort of conclusions do you draw from this information?
For more information on the value of YOUR home in the current market, visit the Basking Ridge Real Estate website.
