By Linda Seida, Staff Writer
LAMBERTVILLE — Home values may be dropping like a rock across the country, but they’re doing fine in Lambertville, according to the city’s tax assessor.
Assessor Rick Carmosino said he is seeing a “4 percent increase across the board, but that’s not chiseled in stone. It’s better than average. Everybody else is dropping.”
The 4 percent figure is preliminary, according to Mr. Carmosino. He said he is still in the middle of performing a sales study.
New figures “could still come in and skew it,” he said.
Mr. Carmosino also said he will begin conducting the annual reassessment of Lambertville properties in the next few weeks. The reassessment is not related to the sales study.
The city’s tax assessor has conducted the annual reassessment inspections for the past 10 years. His determinations this year will be effective with the July 2010 tax bill.
Assessments are based on a property’s resale value, according to Mr. Carmosino. If property owners disagree with an assessment, they have the right to appeal. That doesn’t happen often.
”Usually we get none,” Mr. Carmosino said.
The tax assessor’s office will notify property owners of the results of the reassessment by letter by Nov. 15.
The tax assessor will conduct random inspections of various properties. If no one is home when he arrives, he will leave a business card with his phone number. Property owners will be asked to contact him to set up an appointment at their convenience for an interior inspection. Mr. Carmosino said the inspection should only take three to five minutes.
A property’s assessment is used for tax purposes. If an assessment goes up, the amount of tax a homeowner must pay will rise along with it, depending on the tax rate.
For example, the city’s 2-cent open space tax calls for a property owner to pay 2 cents for every $100 of assessed value.
As another example, the tax rate for this year’s city budget is 20.1 cents per every $100 of assessed value. The average assessed value this year is $367,100. That means a home assessed at the average is paying about $737 for municipal services.
Mr. Carmosino said the purpose of the annual reassessment is to make sure all properties in the city are assessed at 100 percent of their market value, and that can save the city money by avoiding a more lengthy and involved revaluation.
Mr. Carmosino also said the reassessments allow him to adjust home values up or down according to the market.