Feb 20 2007
DailyProgress.com | Increasing assessments tough on many
Per the DailyProgress Charlottesville assessments are up big this year, hitting poor neighborhoods particularly hard. Here’s a chart of the percent increases:
Charlottesville tax districts with the highest and lowest percentage increases in existing housing assessments:
Top 5
1. Fifeville - 32 percent
2. Venable - 27 percent
3. Willoughby - 24 percent
4. Forest Hills - 22 percent
5. (tie) 10th & Page - 20 percent
5. (tie) Ridge Street - 20 percent
Bottom 5
1. University-Maury Hills - 0 percent
2. (tie) Towles-Merryden-Ivy Terrace - 3 percent
2. (tie) Azalea Gardens-Green Valley - 3 percent
4. 28 Holmes & North Avenue Area - 6 percent
5. Little High St./E. Jefferson St. - 7 percent
From the article:
The assessments of houses in Fifeville jumped 32 percent this year, the highest rate of any tax district in the city, following a 24 percent jump the prior year. Values of homes in the Ridge Street area spiked by 20 percent, compared with 8 percent the year before.
The average increase of existing residential home assessments in the city was 16.2 percent, with the typical Charlottesville house now worth approximately $280,000, said Roosevelt Barbour Jr., the city’s assessor.
Driving the demand for houses in these communities is the old real estate mantra of location, location, location. Situated halfway between UVa and the Downtown Mall, Fifeville and 10th and Page now draw young couples like the Pearsons who are attracted by easy access to the city’s main commercial center without the necessity of owning a car.
I’ve been involved in Central Virginia real estate for more than a decade and the best time to buy has always been “a couple years ago”. In hindsight that means NOW. I’ve been more bearish lately on Charlottesville, feeling like things are as high as they can sustainably be right now. The Staunton and Waynesboro markets seem to have more runway, in my opinion. I’m not ready to say that a single family home in Charlottesville is a bad investment, but for investment property, I think greener fields lie elsewhere.
There does seem to be an oversupply of townhomes in Charlottesville, but those prices aren’t coming down like they are in other parts of the country. I think the developers of the condos and the apartments-converted-into-condos in Cville are sufficiently diversified in the cash-cow that has been the Charlottesville real estate economy, that they’re neither willing nor needing to sell at bargain prices to cut their losses. They’d just as soon double down. The real opportunity in Charlottesville seems to be for people wanting to rent those condos. When there’s oversupply in housing, even if the owners won’t sell at a loss, they still would rather lose money with low rent than eat the entire mortgage. Empty apartments are expensive.