CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- North Carolina's largest county is feeling the pinch of high foreclosures as officials reassess property values for tax purposes.
The Charlotte Observer reported Sunday that appraisers are reducing values on thousands of homes. The county will see property values increase by less than 10 percent since 2003.
The housing market "is unprecedented," said Chuck Hicks, who heads the tax assessor's revaluation team. "When we did our past three revaluations (in 1991, 1998 and 2003), we weren't looking at a target fluctuating, developing as fast as this one. You could finish and it was done."
The tax assessor's office will finish evaluating the county's 285,000 residential properties by year-end and will mail out notices next month or in February.
Some homeowners may be glad to see a low value for calculating taxes. But the notices also will be hard evidence that their investment in their home isn't paying off like most people hope.
"Any community wants to grow and prosper. One measure is the value of its property," says Hyong Yi, Mecklenburg's management and budget director. "This translates into billions of dollars of lost wealth. Granted, it may be paper wealth. But it's wiped from the books. It's just gone."
Officials say one big factor in values will be foreclosures, which increased 40 percent this year to 4,300 from already record levels in 2007 and 2009.
Foreclosures "create an oversupply, drive the price down," says county appraiser Scott Hudson. It's hard for remaining owners "to sell for what they bought for when the competition is $40,000 below."
Another problem is that there have been few sales to use as comparisons to indicate what a house is worth.
"That's the biggest challenge, the fact that the market is a moving target," says Eric Anderson, Mecklenburg's assistant assessor. "You're drawing conclusions about a market that has been evolving and moving around."
Still, though, appraisers are finding pockets of prosperity where homes are selling at higher prices, said Phil Henderson, the county assessor's sales analyst.
"Prices were actually up in seven or eight areas," he said. "I was just flabbergasted when I saw that."
