From the Press of Atlantic City:
Cape May wants reval postponed
The city has accepted the need to do another property revaluation but is fighting when it must be done.
The Cape May County Tax Board recently ordered a revaluation for 2008 that would go on the books in 2009. City Manager Lou Corea said the city is trying to put it off one year, doing it in 2009 and getting the new assessments on the books in 2010.
The city is arguing the real estate market is slow and there is even some preliminary evidence the ratio of assessed to market value is now going in a reverse direction. Corea said the city wants the market to settle a bit before another revaluation.
“There are a lot of homes here on the market, and they have the ‘price reduced’ on them,” Corea noted.
One trigger for a revaluation is when assessments slip below 85 percent of market values. The city is at 82.86 percent, but that figure may be starting to rise instead of continuing to fall.
The trend is being seen in other shore towns. Ocean City, according to Cape May County Tax Administrator George Ray Brown III, has seen a recent 5 percent drop in selling prices and its ratio is rising.
…
“There’re quite a few people out there that think this is a bad time to do revaluation because the market is declining, but people don’t like to do it anytime. They didn’t want us to do it when the market was peaking,” Brown said.
It’s all the last statement. I think in a decline time is better also. Your right people never want it done because it will mean a change and people don’t like change.