Let history be repeated for Island valuations

To The Eagle:

This letter is a follow-up to one published in the September 16, 2010 Eagle "Writer urges property value research." I had a pleasant and informative meeting on September 20, 2010 with Denny Bryant the new Chief Deputy / Appraiser in our county Assessor's office

My purpose for this meeting was to learn what property sales data was used to justify the $1,407.00 per frontage foot value used in the 2010 re-evaluation for our property on Welcome Slough. Denny printed from the computer the results of a front foot rate study evidently done by Mike Funderburg before he retired. The printout contains sales data for Puget Island during the period May 2006 through Nov 2009 a 42 month period. The study involved data from 55 sales of slough and river front properties.

Since each property has a "type" code I separated out the slough front sales for further analysis. There are a total of only nine sales with the type code "RS" during the 42 month period. Checking the dates of these sales reveals three sales in 2006, five sales in 2007, and one sale in 2008. Most of these sales were before the real estate slump hit our county which if used will give a higher than realistic value for front footage.

If Puget Island were on an annual re-evaluation cycle there would have been no sales upon which a re-evaluation could be based. The land portion of our Puget Island properties doesn't always have to be changed. I see in the appraisal history for our property when the land value remained the same for eight years indicating that a re-valuation cycle was skipped.

The current Assessor could just skip the land re-valuation portion for those Puget Island type properties that have so few sales, especially when the few sales that did happen are years old. A bold move? No, not when it was done before. Let history be repeated.

If the Assessor decides to skip the land portion of the 2010 re-valuation my quest will be over. The specific sales data values still need to be processed. The report I received from Denny computed a frontage foot value for each type of property. How these numbers were then used may be the subject of another document. I will have to visit with Denny again to complete my research. I hope Denny can find a document somewhere indicating how Mike used the few sales values to support the $1,407.00 number Denny is using for our re-valuation.

Don Koenig

Puget Island