Property tax bills in mail

The county reassesses property values every eight years to align the tax values to market values. The impact of the changes on local tax rates – and tax bills – won't be known until next spring, when the county Board of Commissioners and area city councils begin drafting their annual budgets.

Average property values increased by 5 percent as a result of the reappraisal, with commercial properties accounting for the bulk of the increase, officials said. A spike in values for apartment complexes, motels and commercial real estate drove a 19 percent increase in the assessed value of commercial property, they said.

Apex and Cary were the only locations in the county that saw an average increase in appraised residential property, while Rolesville was the only area locale where commercial values didn't go up.

"The results of this reappraisal project are quite different from those of prior reappraisal projects, where overall value increases have always exceeded 40 percent," Marcus Kinrade, Wake County revenue director, said in a statement. "With the global recession that occurred from mid-2008 through mid-2012 and the pressure it put on residential property values, the results are in line with what we were expecting to see based on market trends over the past two years.

Kinrade added that "residential property values for individual properties may have increased or decreased substantially" even though the average value remained fairly stable.

Durham County plans to mail its property revaluation notices on Tuesday.