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 Douglas County Assessor
News, Views, & Values |
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Welcome to the first issue of News, Views and Values, the newsletter of the Douglas County Assessor's Office. The newsletter is intended to keep you informed and updated on what's happening in real estate and the important programs and services this office administers. Like our popular website, www.dcassessor.org, the newsletter is an effort to educate and make government more transparent. At this time we intend to publish bimonthly. We would like your input on topics you want to know more about.
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 What is Happening in the Douglas County Market?
The Douglas County real estate market was flat in 2006 and 2007. It was during the last quarter of 2008 when our market dropped. The number of sales is down, marketing time to sell a house has increased and new construction has slowed dramatically. And we're seeing declines in home values in some neighborhoods within the County, but not all. While home values in many parts of the US had increased drastically, and have now fallen just as fast, our county has seen only modest increases and now modest decreases. Homeowners may have been concerned that we used sales from the good market for our reappraisal. We were required to consider some of those sales, but it's our job to determine what the market was as of January 1, 2009. So obviously the sales from the latter part of 2008 had a great deal of influence in that decision. As of this writing, the average sales price is lower than 2008 and because of this the assessed values in more neighborhoods may need to be lowered in 2010. Full Story
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How Does The Assessment Process Work?Here is a brief explanation of the assessment process. Douglas County has 212,000 parcels. State law says property is to be assessed at its actual value as of January 1st. The State requires the County's overall assessment/sales price ratio to be between 92-100%.
As you know, some neighborhoods are more popular with buyers than others. Values typically go up faster in the more popular neighborhoods. Each neighborhood is its own little submarket. Buyers (not assessors, real estate agents, bankers or appraisers) establish values in these neighborhoods with their checkbooks through the amount they pay when they purchase property. Assessors review the assessment/sales price ratios in all neighborhoods and determine which need to be raised (those below the 92% median), which need to be lowered (those above 100%) and for those neighborhoods that are within the State's accepted ratio, there will more than likely be no change.
Full Story
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"Nationally, property values are decreasing in double digit percentages. Therefore, my value should be reduced by that much too."
Your property values in Douglas County come from local data; sales of real property in Douglas County. Historically, the economy in Douglas County, including the real estate market, has been somewhat insulated from national trends. So, when real estate on either coast was having double digit increases in value each year, although the market was increasing in Douglas County, you did not see that dramatic increase each year. Similarly, even though the national trend seems to be toward much lower property values, thus far we have not seen decreases in Douglas County like on each coast.
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What Are the Duties of the County Assessor?
The County Assessor is an elected official who is responsible for identifying, location, and fairly valuing all property, both real and personal, within the county. The Assessor's office does not levy taxes and does not create the market value of your property. People create the value by buying and selling real estate in Douglas County. A partial list of Assessor duties established by Nebraska law:
· Administer the assessment statutes of state law
· Establish and maintain fair and equitable value on all real and personal property within Douglas County
· Attend all meetings of the County Board of Equalization
· Review all applications for religious, charitable and educational tax exemptions
· Maintain cadastral records (i.e. parcel maps) on all property in Douglas County
· Maintain property characteristic records for all real estate parcels in Douglas County
· Prepare abstract of value and certification of taxes levied for the State Property Tax Administrator
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