March 29, 2024

Residential property assessment shows no increase, commercial property does

After a biennial assessment done on property valuation in Union County, the results are in that residential property did not increase overall, while commercial properties did.

“Real estate assessment rolls have been recently mailed to property owners of Union County,” said Union County Assessor Theresa Pudenz. “Many property owners can expect to see a few changes on their assessments due to each odd-numbered year being a revaluation year.

“Overall, an increase in valuation means that the property values are increasing in the county,” Pudenz continued. “Depending on what the overall levy does decides what happens to your actual price that you have to pay in taxes. That’s a big variable.”

An assessment is the valuation of property within a county, municipality or township. In this case, the revaluation assessment covers residential, multiresidential, agricultural, commercial and industrial property within Union County.

Taxes include a levy applied to them based on valuation of property and tax levies from various entities within the county, such as Greater Regional Medical Center and Creston Community Schools.

Taxes already completed and paid were based on the 2015 valuation. This assessment is based on 2016 valuations, which Pudenz explained is “why valuations seem so off, it’s because of budgetary purposes: the 2017 value will be applied in the fall of 2018.”

In a nutshell and according to the Iowa Department of Revenue website, the value of property is established, assessments of all taxable properties are added together and the state revenue department examines total assessed values and equalizes them to 100 percent. This equalized percent allows property values to be comparable among jurisdictions.

Then, budgets are established, followed by a tax rate, and credits are subtracted.

Residential and ag

“Overall, residential property did not increase except new construction and any properties I might have revalued,” Pudenz said. “So, we didn’t have an overall increase.”

Pudenz said there was no change in the multiresidential class, which is a new class in the past several years.

She also said agricultural property went down overall.

“Ag land property overall in the county went down, but we applied the CSR2 calculations for soils this year, and also there’s an adjustment rule for non-crop ground and we applied that rule as well this year,” Pudenz said.

The CSR2 soil index is a rating based on productivity, rental rates and land value from updated data.

“There’s a lot of fluctuation in ag land this year,” Pudenz said. “There’s some parcels that went up significantly. There’s some that went down significantly.”

Commercial

The increase in commercial property valuation comes after an overall increase in sales and a boosted economy in Union County. Also, Pudenz said the increase of 19.5 percent on commercial property valuation was to prevent a possible equalization order in the fall of 23 percent.

“We’ve had a lot of economic activity in commercial sales over the last couple of years that have called for that increase,” Pudenz said. “We haven’t had an increase in commercial property in 10 years.”

In 2007, there was an increase of 22 percent.

Pudenz explained that when the state looks at the equalization of all jurisdictions in the state of Iowa, they have to equal out to 100 percent, but there is a cushion of 5 percent more and less.

Equalization, she said, means the Iowa Department of Revenue takes into consideration all the good business sales. The department the looks at the sales, what the property sold for and what it assessed at.

“There’s a little bit of room, but if it’s beyond that (5 percent cushion), there’s potential of equalization to equalize values countywide in that class,” Pudenz said.

She said some people will see an increase more than likely, but there is a business property tax credit available for any commercial property owner in Union County.

There was no change in valuation for industrial properties.