CRE Show: You Can Challenge Tax Assessments and Property Appraisals

Guests of the "Commercial Real Estate Show" discuss how to dispute tax assessments and property appraisals. End Quote

Atlanta, GA (1888PressRelease) February 21, 2012 - If you're dissatisfied with the property tax assessment or appraisal of your commercial real estate asset, don't feel that all is lost: opportunities exist for the figure to be adjusted to a more palatable number.

Guests of the most recent "Commercial Real Estate Show" outlined how site owners, buyers and lenders can dispute tax assessments and property appraisals in a wide-ranging examination of the issues surrounding assessments and appraisals in today's tough market.

"Tax assessors for the most part are professional," said Blaine McCaleb, a partner with Easley, McCaleb & Associates Inc. a tax consulting firm. "These days, they often have limited staff and limited resources … If they make a mistake or there is important information about the property that affects its market value, then they are typically happy to know about that information and happy to consider that in the value of the property."

McCaleb noted that property owners can appeal their assessments to local and state boards, and can even eventually challenge the assessments in court.

Appraiser Ron Neyhart, senior managing director of CBRE's Valuation and Advisory Services Team, said if a property owner feels an appraisal is too low, the owner should go to his loan officer and tell the officer he doesn't believe the value is correct. "Now, [the owners has] to have some information that we weren't furnished with, perhaps some new information."

The loan officer will then have his or her organization's credit department contact the appraiser and "ask the appraiser to revisit some assumptions and some variables."

Neyhart said lenders and owners should be leery of hiring an appraiser based simply on cost. "The low-cost provider typically doesn't have the amount of resources to do a proper job," he said. A low-cost but poorly executed appraisal will not hold up in court and can cause a lender or owner to have to pay massive court-deficiency judgments, he added.

"It's the old story: sometimes you get what you pay for," said show host Michael Bull, founder and president of Bull Realty.

Sara Stephens, president of the Appraisal Institute, said lenders and other clients often criticize the lower-value appraisals produced in a slow economy. "My comment always is, 'Don't shoot the messenger … ,'" she said. "Our job is to analyze the market."

Despite the rise in property-tax assessment appeals in many areas, "most [jurisdictions] are able to handle the volume," said Debbie Asbury, director of the Arkansas Assessment Coordination Department and president of the International Association of Assessing Officers.

To hear about assessments and appraisals in detail, listen to the entire show, which is available for download here.

The next "Commercial Real Estate Show" will be available Feb. 23 and will outline best practices for banks and servicers dealing with non-performing notes, short sales and other real estate owned (OREO) properties.

About the "Commercial Real Estate Show":

America's "Commercial Real Estate Show" is a national talk radio show about commercial real estate. New shows are available beginning every Thursday at the show website, www.CREshow.com. Shows are also broadcast on AM stations, including Atlanta station Biz 1190 WAFS on Saturdays at 10 a.m. Show podcasts are available on-demand on iTunes and the show website.

The show host is 30-year commercial real estate veteran Michael Bull, CCIM. Michael is the founder of Bull Realty, Inc, a regional commercial brokerage firm with three offices headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

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