It was an up-and-down year for property values in Skagit County.
Individual property owners will learn as early as today where they fit on that spectrum — up, down or possibly unchanged — as they start receiving postcards from the Auditor’s Office announcing their new property values.
Even with the down economy, don’t be surprised if your property value is up, especially if you live around Concrete.
Properties in the Darrington and Concrete school districts increased in value roughly 20 percent on average, Chief Deputy Assessor Wes Hagen said.
That might sound high, especially in the midst of a weak real estate market, but the increase represents not just one but four years of property value growth, Hagen said.
Appraisers were in Sedro-Woolley and farther upriver this year to conduct direct assessments. Properties in the rest of the county were assessed using real estate sales data from August 2007 through March 2008.
Properties around Concrete hadn’t been re-valued in the past three years because the real estate market upriver is too light to make sales-based estimates, Hagen said.
In much of the rest of the county, property values were flat. This is most apparent in the number of notifications the Assessor’s Office is mailing — about 25,000. Those whose property values remain unchanged will not receive notices.
In a more typical year, the office would send about 50,000 postcards.
Some property owners might be expecting a down year, but Hagen said only 3 percent or 4 percent of properties sold for less than their assessed value from August to March. More recently, 1 in 6 or 1 in 7 sales were below assessed value, Hagen said, so the bulk of the downturn won’t be seen until 2009.
“Average assessments will be down a little bit next year,” Hagen said.
Property values throughout Mount Vernon, Burlington and Anacortes remained largely unchanged from a year ago, based on an analysis of property sales in those cities.
There were some exceptions. The average property in Skyline in Anacortes lost about 5 percent of its value, Hagen said. Property values in that neighborhood had been rising fast enough a year ago to elicit public criticism of the Assessor’s Office from residents there.
In a downturn, Hagen said, “The hottest markets tend to cool the most.”
In Shelter Bay, property values decreased on average by 5 percent, Hagen said. Home sales suffered, he said, because tribal lease rates for land in Shelter Bay tripled over the winter.
Home values in some of the new subdivisions in Mount Vernon, including Skagit Highlands, also declined, Hagen said.
Property values for the 2009 tax year have been set, but it’s hard to discern what the changes mean for an individual’s taxes. The Assessor’s Office likes to remind property owners that the bulk of property tax increases generally come from voter-approved taxes within school or fire districts or other taxing jurisdictions.
Also, officials say, an increase in property value doesn’t necessarily mean higher taxes.
Unusually large spikes in value, however, do tend to result in higher property taxes. In this year’s assessments, such dramatic increases were mostly absent, and officials aren’t expecting a repeat of Skyline.
They do not, however, expect their phones to be quiet next week. Given the current condition of the housing market, any increase in property values might appear suspect, they said.
“I think the perception for the public is the market is way down, so why are we increasing values?” said Dave Thomas, statistician and appraiser for the Assessor’s Office.
Some properties are immune from the current trend of declining values.
“If you have a 5-acre property in rural Skagit County, that’s still a strong market because the supply is limited,” Thomas said.
Ralph Schwartz can be reached at 360-416-2138 or .
