My question is ... Could you sell your property for the assessed value? If you can prove you can't you have a valid complaint. Otherwise ... it's for the children.;)

Hmmm...completely accurate yet completely misleading all at once. Your lake house or land is not an investment, it is a luxury good. Taxes on that luxury good are not a penalty or investment expense, they are the cost of performing services that benefit you and other residents. That some people make money on lake houses (using whatever definition you'd like) is terrific, but not the definition of success here.

Same can and should be said about every home you purchase. Equity is not guaranteed, as many realized in 2008


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In response to Winni83’s thoughtful post: I agree with you 100%. The Town of Moultonborough doesn’t need to employ a team of “experts” , whose job is to add the same %age increase across the board to waterfront properties. Any low-level employee can multiply last year’s assessment x 1.16 and achieve the same result our “expert” did! That is just crazy! Those in charge of our town finances do not mind wasting taxpayers’ money. Spending responsibly should be everyone’s goal. 🙁

I wasn't referring to a lake house this is my primary residence also in NH, which is an average house in an average town who's tax rate hovers in the low to mid 20's per thousand. I didn't realize a house is a luxury item.

In 20 years of ownership I have paid out ~133% of the purchase price in taxes on a assessed gain of 100%. It gets even worse if I factor in other holding costs, but for the purposes of this discussion I'll stick to just taxes.

Speaking of luxurious lake houses... my island camp has actually turned out to be a better ROI running just slightly ahead of the taxes paid to assessed value increase since I have owned it.

The problem I see is that nobody actually pays attention to all the costs associated with property ownership only look at the purchase versus sell price. Acquisition costs, holding costs such as taxes, mortgage, upkeep, renovations etc... are never part of the equation. It's not a money maker if the aforementioned is running multiples of what gain is realized. Right now for every dollar that I make on my house will cost me $1.95 when all is said and done BEFORE any real-estate transaction fees and commissions. In other words it's a huge net loss in the long run.

Didn't pay attention in math class...
 

So, to get your percentage of increase, are you folks taking the difference between the new assessment (higher) and the old, and then dividing it (the difference) by the old assessment?

As mentioned above- i can see how you can multiply the old assessment by 1.(whatever) and get the new assessment total, but that's only if you already know the rate of increase.

Sorry, majored in English.

Jeep, I feel your math pain
 

Math was not my strong suit either.....so when I figured the %age increase your way, we are up only 13%.
I am not faulting our new assessment as much as the “ across the board” methodology that the assessors apparently used. The waterfronts and quality of water (clear vs. murky) are not uniform and should be assessed/taxed accordingly.

Sorry to be posting so much. I made an error in computing the assessment by doing the entire thing, land and buildings. Jeep, your way is correct, and doing land only = 16.67%. For all you math geniuses: please be patient. 🙄

OK, this is all reasonable. Against these costs you might estimate the amount you would have spent in rent to live in a similar home.

So here is my delemia, based on some investigative work, I could sell my property for something close to the assessed value..... Unfortunately how long it may take me to do so is another question entirely....

On place in my area was for sale, for 2+ years off and on, and the other was on sale for now 1+ year, and may have sold.... and a third sold within I believe 18 months..... All places have about the same amount of land, and the land is all valued roughly the same.....

Now if I look at my appraisal done this year, his price is based on selling the property within 6 Months....

This all makes my head hurt.... I was thinking of fighting my assessment, but now I am not so sure... I believe essentially I would have to prove, that I couldn't sell it for the Assessed value.... when two recent sales say I could....

Who does Moultonboro use for the appraisal? No doubt they don't do it themselves. When was the last time your property was assessed?

Most likely your value was determined by that 6 month old sale, and the sale of similar properties in neighboring towns all fed into a silly computer that spits out the assessed value! UGH!


Woodsy

New assessment company
 

The town, in its wisdom, got rid of Vision Appraisals and hired a new one, and the name escapes me. It appears that all the waterfront land appraisals have magically gone up 16.67%, which means that the new guys are considering the old assessments to be flawless, which is certainly not the case. Without going into detail, our next door neighbors have an extraordinarily high assessment, which they are appealing. If this is the procedure they are going to use, we don’t need to be paying big bucks for something so mediocre. JMO.

Or you can cherry pick sales that are favorable to your opinion while the assessor may do the opposite. Who's "opinion" is right?

Think about it this way.... let's say your place is worth 500K FMV. The house next door is identical. If the house next to you sells after several years on the market for 1 million does that make yours worth the same? The assessor may say yes. On the flip side if the house next door were to be foreclosed and sold at auction for 250K is your place worth 250K? You KNOW the assessor would say hell no.

Just sayin....

well I for one will look for an hearing,due to the fact I don't have a school aged child as I did in southern NH and FL to trim my burden

Not having children in a town’s school system in New Hampshire is totally irrelevant in terms of your assessment or ultimate tax. But let us know if that argument gets you any relief.

Of course it won't. It is totally about what they think the value of the property is nothing else. That doesn't mean some of it isn't opinion though. Comparison to other equal property is the only thing that could change their assessment unless something is wrong like size or something like that.

From website:

“Whitney Consulting Group LLC (WCG) has been contracted by the Town to measure and list approximately 1,200 properties (20% of the town)"

About Whitney Consulting Group, LLC
President, Stephan Hamilton
Mr. Hamilton served as the Director of the Municipal and Property Division of the New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration for over ten years. In that role, he was responsible for the supervision of the collection of property taxes, organization and reporting of municipal finances within the state, the setting of local tax rates, supervision of local property assessments in the state, the equalization of local assessed values, the administration of timber and gravel taxation, and the administration of a state utility property tax.

Mr. Hamilton served for twelve years as a member on the NH Assessing Standards Board, …

He served for more than ten years on the NH Current Use Board and served as its chairman for the last four years.

Mr. Hamilton has worked in property taxation for the last twenty years in several roles: for five years as an assessor in Manchester, New Hampshire; for four years as an appraiser for the New Hampshire Board of Tax and Land Appeals; and as the assistant assessor for the Town of Londonderry, New Hampshire. Prior to these public positions, he was a Certified Commercial Real Estate Appraiser, and he helped run a family real estate appraisal company for 14 years

Thats the issue, there is an amount of the worth of a piece of real estate that is personal opinion... The Appriaser I used, picked properties for comparison that he thought where similar.... but another appraiser may feel there where a different set "similar properties" I am far from done looking at this... but I am not so hung up on being ready to meet with the assessor.... Because I can see the argument from the other side, after looking at some data.....

Now, if other residents want to get together and go to a town meeting and object to the fact that everyone's land values went up an enormous amount, I will be there for that.

Bottom line, NH is a great minimal Tax state for people that live there, but the property tax season home owners have to deal with is unbelievably high.... I get that my property on the lake is something special.... but what about the person that just has a cabin in the woods....

It IS a lot of opinion.

The shoreline property of this lake and many others like it has long ago surpassed being affordable by a Regular Joe NH resident.

Almost every shore front owner complains about the property appraisals and the taxes... (its my 2nd home, I have no services blah blah blah) You can blame your neighbors.. the ones who sold out and cashed out... ultimately raising the value of your property to the point where it becomes unaffordable to you or your family. Then you too will sell out and cash out.

It sucks... but it has been that way for generations.

Woodsy

The point is being missed, what we are seeing in Moultonborough isn't just about the shore front property owners. I know who and what is to blame for lake front property values.

While the lake front property values went up the most, across the board the town just increased the taxable value of every piece of property. Even the guy in the woods.... Here is the thing that is wrong with that. Should every paracel of land be worth the same amount, as long as it is the same size?

I looked at the land values for every property on the road I am on, most of which are exactly the same size. Guess what they are all the same... Now mine has no landscaping, others are highly landscaped. (none anymore are wooded)... Some are easily build able, others like mine are not With the current set back laws building on my property become difficult, as it is pie shaped. But I have the same number of feet on the water as everyone else, so my property value is the same.....

Has it always been like this yes. I remember my father objecting to the Town, back in the nineties.... Bottom line in some regards these values are being derived based false metrics.

I completely agree with the structure values that a in the report. In fact i think they have undervalued everyone house.

Bottom line, is and still is, NH is willing to screw those that are willing to invest in their state. Eventually the lake is going to become the state of the Rich, and their servants because no-one else is going to be able to afford property Taxes.....

It already is... and has been for quite some time!

The question you should be asking is how much was the valuation jump last year? The year before?

If there has been a small percentage increase each year, then this is just the town catching up to the current real estate market that suffers from low supply & high demand.

If there has been double digit percentage increases the last few years as well then the problem bears a deeper look.

Woodsy

They only reassess every few years, not every year-I forget how many. But it is state law they must keep them at 100% valuation.

It is more complex than just a physical reassessment. They are not only doing a reassessment of 20% of the properties but also a " Statistical Update of values".

Here is a link to the town's explanation. UPDATE.

Durham NH went through a Statistical Update of values in 2018 Durham UPDATE and their property assessments went up 16% as well. A statistical assessment assesses the whole town valuation and raises the overall assessment of town property valuation to match predicted current value. It is law that NH towns must make good efforts to keep assessed values as close to market as possible so they MUST do this. AGAIN, if the whole town is valued more and the budget does not increase, the tax rate will drop and your tax payment would not change.

Further, it is not clear to me that Vision has been "replaced" with Whitney Consulting Group LLC. I think they contracted with Whitney to do the specific visitation and measure portion of the physical reassessment. So there likely is no "plot" to get a new assessor to boost values.

If you have been reassessed, validate the details carefully for accuracy. Check how much the TOWN valuation increased. If your property increased by 15% but the whole town increased 17%, you actually LOST a little value, comparatively. Watch for the town, county, and school budgets to be set and check for increases. Then wait for the tax rate to be set before you panic.

Wrong....Vision is totally out of the process except the town, under a contract, is still using their property record card for this year. But the whole deal is under a new consultant....NO Vision input. And watch out for your taxes as there is no indication that town spending will offset any increase. Moultonborough is on a spending spree....ever see the BOS apply any of the unassigned free cash balance to offset tax rate increase? No, me neither. The last approach was to spend, spend, spend and not rebate any prior year overcharges that resulted in unassigned money.

If you are a lakefront property owner, most everyone saw a blanket 16.67% increase in land values....everyone. No details are available as to how this rate increase was calculated. Lots of questions.

Wishing that the tax rate will offset the increased assessments is a stretch. Never going to happen.

Businesses
 

I wonder if businesses got hit the same. They should probably be assessed higher than homeowners. Ie the marina at end of Long Island,that yahct club near Trexlers, Trexlers themselves, and that trailer park just past them. Can’t think of any others but probably there are more.They make money off the lake and should therefore be on the hook for higher taxes. JMHO

Add on
 

I should of been clearer in my earlier post....referring to businesses ON the lake.

Just curious as to why the commercial rate should be higher than residential. Where I'm from it's always a debate - some towns have different rates while others keep the rate the same for both.

As a homeowner, I say jack up the commercial rate, but as a business owner, I say keep them the same...

You can have different rates for residential and commercial use, but cannot simply change assessments.

online
 

Assessing databases are online.
http://gis.vgsi.com/moultonboroughnh/
No need to "wonder if"
Let us know what you find.

More detailed Moultonborough information, such as property tax cards, are also on line at:

https://www.axisgis.com/moultonboroughNH/

No horse in this race.....sold up there long ago. Hoping to return for good someday tho.
But shouldn’t an entity making revenues off their waterfront pay a little more? I know commercial assessments are higher where I live now. Then again taxes here are ridiculously high on everything including income.
Maybe the assessment are the the same up there, will look thanks to both previous posts with websites.
Thanks for the input folks.

If you want assessments to be on anything other than fair market value you would open up a big can of worms.

If you think a waterfront business should be taxed more because they make money off the lake then what other things will people think of that should affect the tax rate?

I have no kids in the school system so I should be taxed less?

I have never called the police or fire department so I should be taxed less?

My house is on an island so I get a slow response from any town services and don't require plowing so I should be taxed less?

taxed less
 

Tilton BB. In a sense you are taxed less. The market value of your island home reflects the seasonal occupancy and the lack of services. If you had the same house on the mainland with comparable shorefront the assessment and the taxes wuuld be much higher. You knew that, right?

It seems that land that is developed as a commercial property is probably more valuable, to a point. But property tax is based on the estimated sales value of the property, not how successful the business is. We have a business profits tax for that.

I defer to the particulars but, not to long ago an estate in Moultonborough sold for several million, was only taxed for less than a single million. That may be where the crux of the issue may lay. Still love the town though.

Current use?
 

If there was significant land in current use, the property tax could have been low. The land could be very valuable on the market and the town will collect "Land Use Change Tax" when it comes out of current use. Alternatively, the house and a lot could have been assessed at a million and an adjacent but separate valuable parcel could have been part of the deal. Too many variables to draw conclusions.

Yes, I do know that properties are taxed on fair market value and island properties are typically valued less than a similar property on the mainland.

A prior poster took the position that because people on certain properties made their living from the lake should be taxed more because of that.

My attempt was to point out that people could come up with any number of reasons why they should be taxed less (or more). The system that only takes into consideration the fair market value of the property seems the most equitable at this time.

Tongue in cheek
 

Tilton BB makes some good points. Fair market value and assessed value are supposed to be close. The assessor doesn’t care whether your ten kids are home schooled....or whether you only spend six months of the year here.....or any of that extraneous nonsense. Whether or not the homeowner rents his property out during the season should have no bearing on the assessment.....he will get nailed when he pays income taxes.

Take a look at the video tape of the September 19th BOS meeting or the minutes from that meeting. NUMEROUS issues pointed out to the Select Board, but nothing came from it. Blind to all the issues.

Property tax should be eliminated and a head tax be instituted. People over 18 years old would pay the tax. Take the levy, divide it by the number of residents and that is your bill. For part time residents, cut the levy in half per person. Everyone would have the same amount of skin in the game and spending foolishness would stop.