Wake County finishing revaluation: What will it cost you in property taxes?

Wake County is wrapping up the revaluation, which sets the new tax value of every home and business in the county for the next four years.

WRAL News is calculating how much the revaluation could cost property owners in taxes in the new year.

Julia Daniels and Joni Coburn live in Raleigh’s Rochester Heights neighborhood, where they both own their childhood homes. They’re maintaining the homes their parents built there, long before Raleigh topped the lists of places to live.

“They say, ‘Do you have an HOA?’” Coburn said. “I say no, ‘we have a PIP.’

“’Oh, that’s cool what is that?’ I say, ‘it’s called pride in your property.’”

Daniels said the last revaluation four years ago was a $500 increase.

On Monday, WRAL News showed county assessors out in neighborhoods reviewing the condition of homes and using data to determine the new values.

“You like to hear it, but you also think in the back of your mind – what is that going to cost for us?” Daniels said.

The last revaluation brought a shock when Daniels opened her tax bill.

Rochester Heights neighbors are preparing for the notices to arrive with the new values of their homes.

“I have no clue what to expect,” Daniels said.

“Tears,” Coburn said. “It’s mind-boggling. “

Since the county is still reviewing sales until the last day of December, we don't know how much home of an increase the revaluation will bring.

However, let's say home values go up 30%.

• A $400,000 home would now be valued at $520,000.
• Your tax bill would go from $2,628 to $3,416.
• That's a $788 increase at today's tax rate (.657).
• Wake County commissioners would need to lower that by 15-cents (.505) for your tax bill to stay the same.

Marcus Kinrade is the Wake County tax administrator whose office is working on the revaluation.

“Tax rates should go down substantially based on these valuations,” Kinrade said. “How their value change holds up against the rest of the county will determine whether their tax bill increases, decreases, stays the same.

Once we know the average change in property values across the entire county, it will provide an idea of how our individual tax bill will change.

If the percentage change in your home's value is lower than the average, your taxes should go down.

If it's higher than the overall average percentage change in the county, your taxes will likely go up.

All that depends on county commissioners cutting taxes to what's called the revenue neutral tax rate.

“The property tax is based on equity and fairness, and values don’t increase at the same rate within neighborhoods, within communities from the west side of Wake County to the east,” Kinrade said.

In this revaluation, Kinrade says the county is concentrating on fairly pricing homes where the owner has lived in them 40 to 50 years and is unlikely to sell.

That should protect long-time homeowners in gentrifying neighborhoods from big increases.

“For them to be in homes alone and on up in age with very fixed incomes, it is truly a challenge for them to maintain ownership,” Coburn said.

These neighbors who've become family hope the revaluation won't price people out of a community they're preserving.

“It’s still here and they haven’t torn it down and built up million-dollar homes, and we are still surviving and we’re not going anywhere,” Daniels said.

Revaluation notices will go out in the mail the week of Jan. 16.

Property owners have until March 1 to file an informal appeal if they think the value is based on incorrect information about their property.

The county says it typically handles about 30,000 of those.

There's also a formal appeal where you can take your concerns to the Board of Equalization Review.