Consider this exchange, one that in some form has played out in social media comments, in emails and phone calls between residents and officials and across Concord over the last few weeks.
“My home value went up 80%! How am I going to afford such a jump in my property taxes?”
“Just because your assessment went up 80%, doesn’t mean your taxes will go up 80%.”
“How much will they go up?”
“Well, we don’t know yet.”
Because Concord hasn’t done a full revaluation in a while, the housing boom over the last few years is being reflected in the new property assessments people recently got in the mail. There’s been sticker shock among many residents who thought their house was worth $350,000 but are now told it’s valued at $550,000.
“There are a few places in New Hampshire where we’ve seen median single-family house sale prices start to level off and even slip a little bit,” said Phil Sletten, research director at the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute. “But Merrimack County is not one of those places.”
A Monitor analysis showed that the median single-family home saw a 62% value increase as a result of the new citywide assessment.
The new values may seem big, Sletten continued, but they reflect the major jumps in pricing that home buyers have been seeing for the last several years.
“What’s happening in Concord is not necessarily unique,” he said. “We’ve seen valuations increase in communities across the state.”
Officials in Concord have warned residents against multiplying their new home value against the tax rate they had last year. Tax bills will certainly go up next year, but the actual tax rate will go down once it’s calculated by the state in the fall.
People whose property value rose more than the citywide total over the last five years will see a larger proportional increase in their taxes. That includes manufactured homes and condos. Properties with values rising slower than the rest of the city will see a smaller increase in their tax bill.
But in general, if you’re in Concord, and you’re looking at a 70% increase in your home’s value, what does that mean?
The exact answer is still weeks away.
However, the city has left some clues.
“Because the residential real estate market has been substantially more active than the commercial/industrial market, it is anticipated that the longstanding trend of residential property owners assuming a greater share of the overall tax burden relative to commercial/industrial properties will continue following revaluation,” Rice wrote in a report to the City Council earlier this summer.
Since commercial properties are still being assessed, even a preliminary gauge of how much the city’s overall value changed is not yet available. According to city Public Information Officer Stefanie Breton, that number is expected in September.
If you’re a renter, there’s a bit more uncertainty.
There isn’t a lot of data in New Hampshire about how much of a property tax increase gets passed on to tenants, according to Sletten, and it really depends on the landlord and the type of housing – a largely multifamily building would be different from a duplex or rented single-family home.
Renters, in most cases, pay for property taxes through their rent and, as a landlord’s ownership expenses rise, those costs will likely be passed on to tenants.
“It is important to remember that renters do help pay for property taxes in most cases,” Sletten said, “and an increase in cost for someone who owns a property that they’re renting out may be passed on to renters.”
If you rent, the most important thing to know is that your landlord’s property values and tax bills over the last several years are public information that you can access at any time.
