Re: Milestone

On Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:55:23 +0000, Terri wrote:
rjmacres@xxxxxxxxx wrote

In our neck of the woods there really isn't many jobs so everyone has to
commute 40-60 miles each way if they want to work. With the fuel prices
going up a lot of people are trying to sell their homes to move close to
their jobs. And with the housing market in such a mess the houses
aren't selling. Kind of a real ugly catch-22. I would guess about
1/2 the homes in town are up for sale.

That sounds about like here. Our other house is just sitting there,
underpriced to sell, but to date not one single person has shown an
interest in it. There are tons of homes just like it on the market that
are closer to jobs.
We're thinking of renting it, if I can convince my husband to do so. The
other option under consideration is lease to buy.

Same situation here, except the commutes aren't quite that far. To add
insult to injury, there was a surprise tax reassessment notice in my
mailbox last week. There already had been two since I moved here,
both done by professional outfits. After the one in 2001, the country
announced that they going to do the next one in-house, ostensibly to save
money. Imo, the decision was heavily influenced by their (continued)
dissatisfaction with the number of taxpayers using the informal appeals
process ... and their success. (After the 1990 assessment, they fired the
head of the assessment office.)

Indeed, 3-1/2 years later (2005) a field inspector showed up at my house.
He arrived with a chip on his shoulder and - long story short - the
"message" was that I could expect a significant increase in the valuation
of my land.

My situation was that, barring unforeseen expenses, I could afford to
live here until it likely would be physically impractical. Complicating
factors were/are that one should should plan on three years to sell and
the market for recreational land tanks during economic downturns. So, I
decided to defer work on the house until I found out how damaging the
reassessment would be. This Spring (three years after the inspection) I
decided that common sense had prevailed and the county had decided to
scrap the reassessment. So, I would be able to live here long enough for
the wood stove, added insulation, etc would pay for itself.

To give them some credit, the county did retain the online database access
system the last reassessment service set up. I've spent a lot of hours
online (dialup) accessing records. It is obvious that they have moved the
tax burden from buildings onto land. But, the database also has property
sales records and I've yet to find any local raw wooded land of >=25 acres
that sold for what the county claims it is worth. Also, some numbers,like
the base acre value that used to be consistent for parcels along a road,
are now all over the place. The county didn't include the important
numbers, like the average percentage increase in assessment, but I'm
guesstimating that there are significantly more winners than losers.

Previously I entertained the notion that the most likely way I would die
would be of a heart attach while shoveling out snow the DOT plowed into
the USPS turnaround at the end of my drive. But there hasn't been that
much snow the last several years. Now I think will be by stroking out
while researching and filling out appeals forms to send to various
local/state government agencies.





now also. But I don't have a commute as I work mainly out of the house.
I could not work outside the house and be just fine but there'd be no
money for extras such as fences, tractors, etc. I probably will scale down
the amount of teaching jobs I take per week in the fall though, to save on
the gas. I already stopped taking any half day assignments and marked
three schools off my list in one district that are just too far to make it
worth the while.

.

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