Spaceman – I wholeheartedly agree. Government gets this stuff wrong, whatever their motives may be, often, if not most of the time.

Here’s my story:

I bought a $152000 fixer upper vintage 1972 2/2/1 townhouse at Decatur Townhouses on Adair in October 2010 – my primary residence – the county used my sales price for valuation for 2011 – $152000, so it went up in value by about $20,000 from the prior owner’s 2010 assessment.

Fast forward…Two months ago, the county appraised my townhouse at $210,000 for 2012 – I sent in a tax return challenge and cited two key things, among others:

1. my unit did not go up in value even based on 2011 comparables (the basis for the recent appraisals/assessments) – I had solid comps and I stand by last year’s valuation

2. 4 of my neighbors with the exact same floor plan and similar updates (I spent $20-25K in renovations after purchase) just went through the tax fight for their 2010 values, and in May were rewarded with $148000 values by the Dekalb assessor and got three year grandfathering

40% increases did not occur between 2011 and 2010 at Decatur Townhouses, and a unit similar to mine sold in foreclosure in March 2012 for $!00,000 (a real outlier) – quite a deal! I guess I get to use that one as a comp next year…

40% decreases did not occur between 2011 and 2010 in neighborhoods like Hawthorn Park in Kirkwood or Lantern Ridge just ITP off of Covington, but that’s what they got from the assessor.

The scuttlebutt among astute neighbors and some of my brainier Realtor friends is that Dekalb is sticking it to the best school districts and relieving the most downtrodden – it ain’t fair, and most of the folks that I know in the city of Decatur seem to be at some level of dispute with recent valuations.

Since Zillow is using the tax assessors’ numbers as the basis of most of their zestimating, and since those numbers are within 20% range, 70% of the time (at least in metro Atlanta) well, Zillow is even worse than the tax assessor in my opinion – algorhythmic valuation is never as good as local valuation, but when Dekalb is as challenged as they are to be a solvent, well run county, sticking it to the taxpayers outweighs honest assessments…