With skyrocketing home prices, Lexington owners see big property tax increases

LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Householders in Fayette County are discovering how significantly the very hot housing market place is affecting their home taxes.

Fayette County Assets Price Administrator David O’Neill said his workplace assesses the values of about 25% of Fayette County properties just about every yr. That suggests men and women can usually assume a new valuation just about every 4 several years.

“The individuals who have been reassessed this 12 months for 2022, the very last time they ended up reassessed was in 2018. In 2018, the median sale rate was $191,000. Today, it is $260,000. That’s a 36% improve in that period of time of time,” O’Neill reported.

That signifies persons who are receiving their new assessments this calendar year are observing a massive maximize. People who have been observing the marketplace are not astonished.

“We have been maintaining an eye on house values and, I imply, from what I have seen, they’ve skyrocketed all throughout the county. It was not truly shocking. I was really form of glad it came in exactly where it was at due to the fact, comparatively on a number of other web-sites like Zillow, it is really declaring it really is value an additional 30 or 40 thousand,” reported Barry Berlin.

Berlin mentioned his residence benefit experienced improved by $30,000 given that the past assessment. If you truly feel the value is incorrect, there is a process to problem it.

“Be sure to come to feel free to get in touch with our office or e-mail the call information and facts on your detect and talk to us about the evaluation. You can also initiate a protest on a type online which is really simple, isn’t going to just take a good deal of time to do. Anyone from this office will access back again out to you,” O’Neill claimed.

For people like Barry Berlin, though, the further taxes are a superior indicator that their investment is heading in the ideal course.

“For me, it is really fantastic. I am not searching to sell this property at any time quickly, so of course the a lot more price goes up, the additional income is coming into my pocket. The monthly’s likely to go up a very little little bit, but in the lengthy run, I am happy to see the assets worth steadily rising in this place,” Berlin reported.

Friday afternoon, the Lexington Herald-Leader documented there was a cluster of properties downtown, like previous Lexington Mayor Jim Gray’s, that hadn’t greater in benefit in lots of many years. O’Neill explained the challenge was brought to his notice this 7 days.

“I took a appear at it and I agree that they have been, in some cases, noticeably below-assessed, so we introduced all those up to good dollars value for 2022. Generally, the reason is, in 2020 we did not do substantially reassessing because we have been headed into the total COVID shutdown and it just was not the suitable time to be altering residence values. A lot’s took place in the previous few of a long time and some of individuals values have absent up relatively drastically in the six decades due to the fact they had been formerly reviewed,” O’Neill explained.

Grey instructed the Herald-Leader that he was joyful to pay the taxes on the adjusted value.