Manatee County Property Values Rise
After a year’s worth of reports about the Florida real estate slump, the Manatee County Property Appraiser’s Office released what sounded like surprising news Thursday:
Property values are up. Significantly.
The taxable value of property in the county - based largely on real estate values - actually rose by 11 percent in 2006 over 2005.
But the number is skewed by the home sales and prices of early 2006, before the Southwest Florida housing market ran aground, officials say.
“It’s a lot more than I thought it was going to be,” said Dale Friedley, director of Land Information Systems/Geography Information Systems for the Manatee County Property Appraiser’s Office.
According to the property appraiser’s office, the total value of property in Manatee County was $46.8 billion in 2006, with a value totaling $34.1 billion. That compares to $30.2 billion in taxable value in 2005.
And despite the slowdown in the Manatee County housing market, about 44 percent of the increase is based on new construction - homes planned and completed when the housing market was at its peak.
That doesn’t bode very well for next year, when depressed Florida mortgage activity won’t turn in the kind of revenue increases the county has grown accustomed to in recent years.
Those are the warnings of Don Schroder, a local real estate agent and president of the Coalition Against Runaway Taxation, an anti-tax group based in Holmes Beach.
The 11 percent increase is an “aberration of what the true market values are,” he said. “We know prices are dropping and dropping drastically.
“The question is what those numbers mean to the actual budget,” he said. “What we’re concerned about is that, because there’s is an increase in taxable revenues, the county will spend it.”
Thursday’s numbers were released to Manatee County’s taxing agencies, such as the city of Bradenton.
The county will submit its official preliminary property values to the state July 1. Homeowners can expect individual property assessments in August, Friedley said.
Much of the budget process will hinge on what comes out of the legislative special session beginning this month in Tallahassee aimed at reforming the state’s property tax system.
Officials wouldn’t speculate Thursday on whether the unexpected double-digit hike in Manatee County’s property assessments would alleviate expected budget cuts.
County Commissioner Carol Whitmore said Thursday evening that there is almost certainly going to be tightening in next year’s budget because of the housing market conditions.
“Times are tough right now for everybody, really,” she said. “I know there’s going to be some belt-tightening.”
But the increase in taxable values could mean at least a reduction in property tax rates, even if actual tax bills might not go down.
“That hopefully will give us something that we can move taxes down,” she said.
But Schroder wants more drastic tax action to protect the rights of Florida home mortgage loan payers.
“They can’t contain the current tax base,” he said. “They’re going to have a revolt on their hands.”
SOURCE: Bradenton Herald
