LACONIA Tax Increases
 

Looks like the property valuations have gone up from 15-35% from 2016 to 2017, wonder what 2018 has in store. What is the city doing with all that extra cash?

My 2nd half tax bill in Laconia actually went down slightly.

Laconia Tax Increase
 

My assessed value on a Laconia waterfront property went up about 21%. The tax rate in Laconia declined from $22.20 in 2015 and 2016 to 21.03 in 2017. The net result was still an increase of several thousand dollars per year in real estate taxes on this one property.

The assessors office said that they were aware that waterfront sales amounts were substantially higher than what the city had them assessed for so they made the changes. Non waterfront values did not change much at all.

They use a process called equalization. Equalization is a process carried out annually by Municipal Assessing Jurisdictions and the New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration which ensures that common property tax burdens are apportioned fairly and equitably among taxpayers.

So you became more equal than everyone else. I don't know how we ended up with property taxes for local government. A head tax would be more fair and assure everyone had skin in the game.

Here's what seems like a good way for Laconia to be spending: 4.3-mil dollars; Oct 2016 to May 2017 rebuild project, Lakeside Ave infrastructure improvement; the new and improved Lakeside Ave is now looking very good .... your Laconia tax money was very well spent here!

http://www.laconiadailysun.com/newsx...vement-project

Would be nice for Weirs Beach to be a year 'round venue, maybe with a go-to play facility like an indoor water park. Some facility similar to the www.kahunalaguna.com water park up in North Conway. Maybe that corner lot that used to be home to a volcano, summer outdoor water park could be a good location?

You're day dreaming again.

Laconia Tax
 

My assessed value in Laconia went up by $11,200, but my December tax bill went down by $36.

Now our assessed value here in Pembroke went up by $200, but our December tax bill went up by $900.

Go figure,
Bill

taxes
 

The gripe I've always had with the assessments is that a property on a private road, with no city services (trash pickup, plowing, road maintenance) is valued by the assessors office same as properties with town services. Wouldn't it make sense that a property that has to pay for those services in addition to the standard tax bill be worth less than ones that didn't? This is true when it comes to selling the property, but not is the eyes of the assessor....

Again, don't forget the first tax bill that you get in June is half of what the total tax was from the year before. It is estimated. So when the actual tax rates come out the amount you still owe for the year(after what you paid in June) is on that bill.

In South Down / Long Bay the city doesn’t maintain or plow the roads or provide trash pick up.

I don’t see any adjustment downward in our taxes for that either.

:rolleye2:

You are correct and there is also no regular police patrols (obviously if the are called or dispatched through 911 they respond)in SD/LB any longer but if I can see the lake from my window although I have no direct access my rate is higher. The tax structure in Laconia is completely hap hazzard and random.

Laconia Screws Homeowners at Xmas
 

LMAO,

Was wondering when someone would post comments about the thievery Laconia just pulled off.

We own in Pickerel Cove, sure it's waterfront but limited access to the BIG lake as well were on a private road, with little to no city contribution. Was a major undertaking and over 2 years for the City to fix the dilapidated city road we pass to get to our road.

I'd say many of us got screwed, 232 to 298 want to see the city drop it that much in less than 1/2 year.

Anyway, maybe I missed the assessment notification they surely sent out prior to raising property values, excessively.

Who then pays the town to plow & maintain the street your driveway connects to?

No thievery...
 

There are lots of "private" streets that the city has no responsibility for. This includes most of the condo developments.

The tax rate went down because the assessed values went up.... pretty simple!

Woodsy

Unclear on the concept...
 

Why is the cost of running a town connected to the value of the residences?

If a property's value increases, the cost of running the town doesn't go up. I see Meredith is spending their windfall on a new DPW building. That is certainly going to enhance my life.

Most lakefront owners get screwed, as prices keep moving up. If you don't sell your property, you still get hit. However, the place to express your issues and concerns is at the Board of Select person's or what ever your town calls them. All that is going on is that more taxes are being paid by lakefront owners than others, and the lakefront people by and large cannot vote for anything as many are non residents. After all, they spend the money on wish list items because they can...... Lots of waste. But they respond to the voters and screw others.

The assessed value has nothing to do with what town services you use and what town services are, or are not, provided to you. The value is based on only one thing: What they feel your house is worth if you were to sell it. If you feel your house is worth less than what the town has it assessed for then by all means appeal your assessment. If there are other homes that you can cite that would provide examples of why the value placed on your home is incorrect you may win.

To answer another post: There was no advance notice of the value change from Laconia. I thought that they would or should send something out in advance but that did not happen.

If you look at the assessments around lagua bay there are some significant discrepancies. It really comes down to the have and have nots. Those that have a vote seemed to have faired better than those that don’t have a vote (or those areas that are previewed to have the least voting residents), for the most part. And if the city is just now figuring that their assessment of waterfront property was 30% too low, who was asleep at the switch on that? And remember they didn’t change the assessment on the structures for the most part, just the land. Look at real estate comps, they didn’t go up by 30% this year.
And yes the value of my property is tied to the amount of services that are received from the city, because in addition to all the maintenance, trash, snow removal the taxes are still the same as others, so someone looking to purchase the property has to factor in all those costs

Thank the Pembroke schools for that tax hike. $1 million short due mostly to lower enrollment in the high school. The next few budget meetings are going to be uglier and uglier.

Some helpful links
 

Here are some helpful links to see how your assessed value may have differed from say, your neighbors and others in Laconia. Some increases were very large while others actually went down slightly. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason - it all seems arbitrary to me especially when I compare land value and improvement value. The old to new report shows the increase year over year.

https://www.laconianh.gov/160/Assessing

...and this link gives you more detail on your assessed value but you can also look up others if you have the address:

http://gis.vgsi.com/laconianh/Search.aspx

You may be inspired to file for an abatement but if any of their information is inaccurate (which much of it will be) then they can reassess you property for an even higher value (for example, if the square footage or acreage reported is less than what it actually is).

The cost of running the town has no connection to the values of the residences or services individual residents receive. The value of the residences IS associated with the assumed ability to pay tax (people who can afford an expensive house can afford to pay a higher portion of the taxes) and tax is apportioned on THAT basis.

You can argue for and against the current form of tax apportionment just as you can argue for and against about any form of tax; sales, income, fees, business, etc. At some point the elected legislature decided how to apportion taxes to get the bills paid and THAT is how it works in NH.

I personally think the reasoning about ability to pay tax relating to the value of your property is pretty fair. In addition, I like to keep the taxes close at hand, in the town, where you have much more power to impact spending decisions. Most other forms of taxes end up being collected by the state which is far less accountable to individual citizens and keeps escalating spending as long as they already have their hands in your pocket. Further, lobbyists can lobby the state to spend easier. It is pretty impractical to lobby individual towns to spend money for a cause. Since the state doesn't have a spigot of money, they have to say no to lobbyists.

Finally, there is the history of almost every other state. They all bought into income and sales taxes to provide relief from property taxes. Over time, the property taxes increased again. Now they have it all, income, sales, and property taxes and an overall bigger spending/tax bill.

Again, this is my opinion. Your milage may vary.

Big Taxes on the Big Lake
 

As usual there is lot's of pros and cons about taxation.
I think it was a politically charged subject back in the early day's in simpler times.
Paying Taxes and receiving something for the money gives one the feeling they have tangible interest in their payments.
We fought long and hard to get the City of Laconia to fix Hilliard Road as it was literally falling apart, they removed the pavement and made it dirt, lol.
This is the same City that post signs around town "Beware of Potholes" because they can't afford to fix the roads.
We own in the fine city of Laconia, but we have no voting rights, we're Nashua residents, so much for our voice in the process.
Simply put, it's amazing a small city with a wealth of Taxation around several Bodies of water has No money.
For those who have interest there is a property valuation comparison at the Assessors area of the Cities Web-Site, around Pickerel Cove most of the Homes have property values increase between 50K and 114K the average being around 60K.
Sadly some folks got hit pretty hard, I'm sure based on the wild fluctuations in Property Values based on a flurry of Real-Estate sales over the past few years. Another surprising thing is there is no cap, sure the tax rate didn't increase but they sure took a uptick market and shoved it up folks assess.
Laconia is a pathetic city, selling is now more about just getting out of dodge than paying the extra grand in taxes.

"The cost of running the town has no connection to the values of the residences or services individual residents receive. The value of the residences IS associated with the assumed ability to pay tax (people who can afford an expensive house can afford to pay a higher portion of the taxes) and tax is apportioned on THAT basis."

Not necessarily true. I have seen many neighbors who can no longer afford their property tax and have had to sell their property and move. You can't pay your taxes with equity, unless you go into debt by borrowing against it. Lots of people are paper rich and cash-flow poor.

The assessed value only decides what percentage of the amount of money the town decided to spend you have to pay. Increases in your assessment due to market improving generally doesn't increase your taxes UNLESS for some reason your property increases more in value than others. The increase in your taxes is due to the town spending more money. This could be town elected officials spending more money or it's decided by town meeting depending on where you live. Politicians love it when people blame increasing property values for their deeds, it lets them off the hook. Don't be fooled.

Yes, they will sell, pocket a nice profit and move to a house they CAN afford the taxes on. I have friends who did exactly that. I did exactly that as well. The house sale funded my retirement. My friends are happy and I am happy.

Someone else who CAN afford to pay the taxes AND the higher value to purchase the house will buy the house.

Again, I'm not saying it's a perfect tax structure but it is the one we have lived with for quite a while. Anyone that owns property should know that they have to pay property tax and that tax is likely to grow over time. If you are lucky enough to have a valuable (high tax) property that doesn't excuse your responsibility for paying taxes on it any more than you having to repair the roof or paint it or put a new septic system in. It's a known cost of ownership and all the other costs increase over time as well.

If you're worried about your lake tax bill know, keep your fingers crossed, and write to your Congressmen to urge him to vote NO on the current Republican tax plan. if it passes, property taxes will no longer be fully deductible on your federal return.

The details are still being hammered out, but most reports say that only the first $10,000 will be deductible. So if your primary residence has $10,000 or more in taxes, and your lake house has another $10,000, you will lose $10,000 in deductions. It will have the same cash impact as your lake taxes increasing by $3,300 (assuming a 33% tax bracket).

Interesting question as to extra cash. I once had a former selectman ask me the same question when Alton valuations had gone up. As with most taxpayers, he did not understand the basic concept of how it works. No extra cash would be collected due only to increased valuations!

After a spending budget is passed by a town meeting or city council, only that approved $$ amount minus other expected revenues can be collected by property tax. (There is a minor "overlay" amount added to hedge for abatement's and deadbeats).

If the net valuation (sum of all valuations) goes up then the tax rate goes down so that only the approved amount is collected. Individual assessments serve only to divide up the overall cost of running the town or city. It is you against your neighbors once the budget is approved.

The focus on limiting property taxes needs to be on limiting the approved budgets. That involves things like getting involved and also voting.

When you get to a certain point your deductions go away now, just saying.

Regardless if the all things remain the same and they re-evaluate properties the end result is a higher tax bill if the property values increase, regardless if the town spends or intends to spend the money to be collected.
The only thing they can say, is, See we didn't raise the Tax Rate, but did one better and re-evaluated the property values to reflect recent sales, 25-35 percent is a pretty big hit if your property happens to be one of those they decided to increase.
The long and short of it, Laconia jammed the taxpayers that have the least over all impact on the cities services, Schools etc., and better those who live in Association Controlled Properties, talk about your cake and ice-cream., and even better most aren't voting residents.......

This response is misleading. The counter point is that marginal tax rates will go DOWN so that your overall tax bill will be lower. The people is really whacks are from high income tax states-certainly NOT NH.

Trackeer.....

Laconia didn't jam anyone.... The real estate market for the lake has low inventory and high demand, especially for the waterfront homes.

If you want to blame somebody for an increase in your assessment... blame the flatlander out of state buyer who is willing to pay the 20%-30% premium over and above the assessed value to own waterfront property. It is not people working and living in Laconia that are buying these houses.

Woodsy

Assessed value does not necessarily equal MARKET value. And anyways Lakes Region RE hasn't been an easy mover recently from what my RE friends say.

RSMLP...

Sorry if my post was unclear...

You are right.... assessed value doesn't equal market value. But the post that started this was about an increase of 15%-35%+ jump of assessed value. (with waterfront homes taking the bigger percentage of the hit). The only reason the assessed value jumped is because the waterfront homes that have sold (market is tight, high demand and not a lot for sale), have consistently sold for 20%-30% higher than what they were assessed for.


Woodsy

taxes
 

Perfect example of the tom foolery going on

Barton's Motel, 4.2 acres of water front property had it's assesment just for the value of the property go down from $726k to $531K.

Margate hotel, 4.8 acres assessed value of just the property again went down from $1.3M to $1M

How are those properties valued at $126k to$208K per acre, but residential property on the other side of the lake, had their valuations increase as much as 42% with an average value of $1.5M per acre of land?

My post is not misleading, and it is critical to the property tax discussion--over 30% of NH filers claim the property tax deduction.

It is true that some people will see their marginal rates go down as the brackets are reduced, but others will see their marginal rates go up. See link below to find out where you stand.

The details are still being hashed out to reconcile House and Senate plans, but all sides agree that many people, especially those with high salaries and high property taxes, will see their payments to the IRS increase.

http://www.businessinsider.com/tax-b...arison-2017-11

Commercial vs. Residential.... 2 totally different things! You need to compare apples to apples.

Woodsy

For many reasons you cannot compare residential to commercial for assessed values. Much of the assessed commercial value is determined by zoning and permitted use of the property, it is not based solely on size of the land and the structures on it.

Lakes region waterfront RE has been strong lately. If you're not on the water then it's not quite as good.
It just goes to show that the top earners are still going strong and will only get stronger under this administration. The gap continues to get wider between middle class and the very rich.

Taxes
 

The land values of anyone on pagus bay on a residential road saw in increase of 41.9% across the board, only exceptions
Wiers Boulevard, residential saw a 6-10% increase (most were 6.2%)
Union Ave Residential (not many) still got the 41.9% increase

The big winners, Commercial land values took some big hits (most also saw reductions in the value of the improvements as well)
Margate 76 Lake St -24%
Margate 84 Lake St -9%
Bartons -27%
Lazy E -10%
Naswa -31%
Lakehouse Cottages -28%
Old Gas Station/ motel next to bridge -33%

Commercial seems to have some variability, where residential was a flat 41.9% across the board

For residential waterfront property, the biggest bite comes just from having that lake frontage. There is another bump from extra frontage (eg. 150' vs 100') or from extra land area, but on a per-acre basis that bump divides out to be less. Thus larger residential parcels typically would be seen as having a lower per-acre assessment than smaller ones. Just being on the lake is most important to those with the ability to buy such a property.

A good number of long-time lakefront property owners couldn't afford to buy their own properties at today's prices. The idea that the value of a property reflects ability to pay a tax on it is severely flawed. While it may be somewhat true at the time of purchase, it becomes less so as time passes. Even just retiring on a fixed income changes that. Inheriting a property bought long ago by parents and trying to keep it in the family can be rather difficult. Since high valuations of lakefront property are driven by sales to those who want it and can afford to pay, your own property tax is thus one you pay on the basis of someone else's buying power, not your own. If we were starting over in deciding how to assess taxes, and you proposed paying your share according to how much buying power someone else had, you'd be laughed out of the room.