Wendy McLauchlan could not believe the dollar amount she saw on her home assessment card.
Living on and off Pleasant Pond in Warner for over 30 years, she inherited her late father’s home in 2022 when he passed away. Everything about the house — the wearing yellow paint, the shaky wooden deck and the rickety shed — has been the same for decades.
The small one-story home with two bedrooms and one bathroom had maintained a value of around $21,000 since 2015. This year, it increased to $68,300.
Unless the Warner tax rate goes down, that’s about $2,300 a year McLauchlan will face in taxes on top of the rent she pays for the land. She fears being priced out of her home.
“My porch is falling apart,” said McLauchlan, a salesperson at a manufacturing firm. “We’ve not done anything to increase that value.”
Pleasant Pond is a 33-unit manufactured home park that houses people with moderate- to low-incomes. Last year, it became a resident-owned community, allowing for the lots to be rent-controlled and remain affordable.
After an assessing company did a full revaluation of Warner homes, many property values shot up — and in some cases doubled — compared to the previous assessment in 2020. Many residents are worried about the effect the new values will have on their upcoming property tax bills.
For Pleasant Pond, it’s especially troubling because an additional $25,000 in value was tacked onto each manufactured home because of current market estimates. While the tax rate has not been reset and no one is certain how much they’ll end up paying, the news alarmed many residents and sowed concern that their bills would outpace their means.
“We are so scared,” McLauchlan said. “If everybody’s being taxed an additional $25,000 on their homes, that’s an added expense that they already can’t afford.”
Warner recently hired Avitar Associates to do the town’s reassessment, a process cities and towns are required to complete every five years. The firm sent preliminary values to homeowners in late August, where many residents saw their property values double.
A combination of factors came into play: the previous assessor, M&N Assessing Services, reportedly had poor data that did not accurately reflect market values, in-person assessments have not been done since 2015 due to COVID-19 and housing prices have increased tremendously across the country in the last few years.
Loren Martin, the director of assessing operations at Avitar, wrote in an email that home values in the summer of 2020 “hit a wall and went straight up through the ceiling.”
“We were in a housing crisis with limited supply and huge demand at that time so properties were going on the market and with almost no exposure being sold … for far more than asking price,” she wrote. “This became the norm for the next several years and has not yet tapered off here in Warner, let alone in New Hampshire.”
She said in the case of Pleasant Pond, the firm had very limited data on what homes sold for in the area, and the $25,000 add-on was estimated based on mobile home sales in other places. The amount may change in the final revaluation.
“The fact that a unit is set up on a site, connected to utilities, has a driveway, sells for more than if you pulled that mobile home out, put it by the street and a ‘for sale’ sign up,” Martin said. She also took into account that the park surrounds a pond, which is atypical for manufactured home communities and adds value.
Residents have complained about inconsistencies in how properties were being evaluated.
In a Sept. 9 Select Board meeting, residents complained that their old houses were assessed as being in very good condition, piles of wood were counted as entire fixtures and empty rooms were marked as being fully finished.
Wanda Anderson, 65, has lived in a one-and-a-half-story home in Warner since 1986. The home was approximately worth $143,030 in 2024 — it was reassessed this year at $349,000. She said she has never seen its value increase by that much.
On her assessment card, the small bridge in front of her home was valued at $125,000 when it had never been assessed before. Her home counted as a waterfront property that she assumed was based on the Willow Brook that runs near her home.
“I am very, very stressed,” Anderson said in an interview.
The entire Pleasant Pond co-op was assessed to be worth a little over $1 million in 2024 but increased to $2.4 million. Kaitlyn Wright, a resident for six years and a co-op board member, said the property’s pavilion and bathhouse values increased significantly.
The co-op had to charge an additional $160 on its lot rents when to help with incorporation costs. The board wanted to reduce its fees this year, but now isn’t so sure because of the uncertainty around the tax bill, Wright said.
“It feels like a slap in the face,” she said. “After everything we’ve done and tried to keep rent down, and then this happens.”
Wright bout her home for $80,000, which is now assessed at a little under $200,000.
Since Warner’s tax rate has not been reset for this year, residents do not know how much they will be paying in property taxes. In 2024, the town’s municipal tax rate — or how much money they pay per every $1,000 of their assessed home value — was $9.15. With school, county and state taxes added in, the total rate came to $30.89 per $1,000 of value, one of the highest in New Hampshire.
If the tax rate doesn’t fall drastically, the co-op board is worried residents will be priced out of their homes. Julie Whittemore, a 24-year resident and board member, said she’s still working to sustain her income level while also drawing her Social Security benefits.
“It’s heartbreaking for all of these retired people who are on a fixed income,” she said. “They’re absolutely petrified.”
Residents can dispute their home assessments if they see errors. Martin said they can file for abatements that will partially refund a person’s tax bill if something was incorrect.
In a Select Board meeting this week, Martin said she wants to change some parts of the process that did not work this year in Warner. She told the board Avitar will send assessment notices out earlier and make it clearer what features are being taxed.
“Every year I learn something new,” said Martin, who has been a certified assessor for almost 35 years. “We try to change the process to provide different information or more information to make it better.”
Members of the Pleasant Pond Association met with Avitar and will work with advisors and lawyers to explore options.
Already strained thin, McLauchlan said board members will continue to work to get rid of the $25,000 add-on to keep the park affordable.
“We’re not just going to sit by idly and not try to rectify this situation,” McLauchlan said. “Nobody wants to potentially pay more money.”