If you’re a news-junkie with ink-stained fingers or um..carpal tunnel, you know the AJC has gone whole hog on evaluating tax assessments across the metro area and is reporting it’s findings in an in-depth series.

But the shocker being played up by the AJC, namely the widespread discrepancy of tax assessments to sales prices across much of the Atlanta metro area, doesn’t seem to shake out for ol’ 30030, according to the AJC’s zip code breakdown.

In fact, while Decatur’s sales value of homes increased nearly 10% from 2007 to 2008, tax assessments in the city went up only 3.6%.  Meanwhile, residents who filed tax returns requested a 19.2% drop in value.

So, according to this AJC analysis (story HERE, cool interactive map HERE), Decatur’s assessments aren’t currently that out of whack.  To see what a real problem looks like, take a gander at South DeKalb, or much of South Fulton, where sales value can be as much as 50% less than the property’s tax assessment.

As for the reason why assessments are so much higher than values, most across the Atlanta metro tax offices were pretty upfront with the AJC.  If assessments truly reflected current costs, local governments would go into a operational tailspin.

Is this reason enough to keep assessments up?  If you’re a city or county government unprepared to deal with massive services cuts or a political leader unwilling to propose a tax increase, probably so.  If you’re a homeowner struggling to make ends meet, probably not.

According to the AJC’s “Atlanta Home Sales Report”, Decatur had the 11th largest gain in combined home sales price in the metro-region from 2007 to 2008, and ranked second in new home sales price growth.

A closer look shows why “second in new home sales price growth!” shouldn’t be the headline.

New home sales price depends heavily on what’s available from one year to the next, so the median price of a new home in Decatur jumps wildly from one year to the next.  So though a 71% gain sounds great, it’s entirely dependent on available inventory.

Existing home sales is a much better indicator.  From 2007 to 2008, existing home sales declined 9% (520 vs. 474), while the median resale price actually increased a percentage point vs. 2007 (from $266,950 to $270,200).

Bottom line?  Sales are down vs. 2007, but remain at levels that were seen as recently as 2003.  Meanwhile, Decatur’s median existing home price continues to buck the national trend, while the new home price is up big, resulting in an 11th place ranking metro-wide.

“Up slightly” is the new “triple digit gain”.

Graph Courtesy of city-data.com

As you can see above, 4th quarter home sales in the city of Decatur fell to their lowest level since Q1’03 (if that ’03 number can be believed).   As for the median home price, its down around its Q1’07 level – though the sample size is obviously much smaller than usual.

Looks like the trend is pretty consistant across the area – 30306, 30307, 30308, 30316, and DeKalb County.  Meanwhile, things in 30032 continue to just get worse.

Anyone know how many Decatur houses on average sold per quarter prior to the housing bubble?  That might give a better indication of the new normal.