Ken Himmler.com

In recent months we have seen the real estate market drop like a rock. Let’s face it for those people that didn’t see it coming they either had their head in the sand or had some distant relative that got caught in the 1849 gold rush fever and it is in their DNA. In some parts of the country property values have dropped 50% to 60%. Our local governments had a fun time increasing services, pay raises, increased benefits and hiring like there was no tomorrow. Now that property values have bottomed their (local governments) tax base has also gone down. This is putting a serious hit on their revenue base. What are they doing to reduce the tax base on real estate so that your property taxes go down? Nothing, in my opinion. At least in Florida they are using two year old real estate data to compute the tax base of the real estate. Why, in my opinion is this a rip off? If you look at the appraisal system it uses comparables which are the most recent sales. It does not include what the bank foreclosed on but what is listed in the MLS (multiple listing systems). If real estate is not selling they go back to what had sold , which may be a year old in some cases? This means that the property tax that you could be paying is based on old, outdated information. What it does mean is that the system that our local governments use is a way to bilk property owners out of even more revenues (in my opinion). Now local governments across our nation have lost these revenues they, instead of cutting expenses, have decided that they will increase other fees such as divorces, marriages, driver licenses and anything else they seem to be able to get away with.  My question is can they do something different than to just increase fees? Could they reduce expenses, cut jobs, cut benefits? Let’s face it we are in a massive recession, we are all having to make major cuts? If you were running the local governments what would you do?

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