Mar 11

In a previous post on foreclosures in Milwaukee I mentioned that rental owners spend $90 – 120 million per year in repairs and renovations, to which a reader expands upon by asking what do rental owners pay in property taxes per year.  I thought that an interesting and relevant question so we dug into it a bit.

Rental property owners in Milwaukee pay about $266 million per year in property taxes, another $26 million or so in special assessments, which could be everything from fire inspections to alley and sidewalk repairs to so called reinspection fees. The includes owner occupied properties with a rental unit, as they are landlords as well.

As a side note I was surprised to see how many properties that were clearly investor owned, the owner address was not the same as the property address or the owner is a LLC or corp,  were listed by the city as owner occupied.

Rental owners also pay somewhere around $32 million a year in sewer and water plus associated fees.  This number is much harder to arrive at and may be higher than this. I simply took the gross amount and divided it by number of dwelling units.

One very interesting factoid that I stumbled across while searching for the answer is the number of properties actually taken by the city through tax foreclosure was 745 in 2012, a very significant 60% increase over the 464 taken in 2011.  The treasurer is budgeting even a slightly greater number for 2013.  1152 properties entered the city tax foreclosure pipeline in 2012.  Source: Milwaukee City Treasurer Dept Metrics

Per the U.S. Census around 54.5% of all dwelling units in the city are rentals.  City assessment data puts that number higher, around 64%. The city publicly claims higher owner occupancy as they report the percentage of residential parcels rather than units that are owner occupied.  The census puts vacant housing units at 11.3% with rental vacancies at 4.2% 302,000 people in Milwaukee are tenants. Source: U.S. Census Fact Finder

Dec 08

As of the First of December Milwaukee property owners owe a whopping $60,527,762 in delinquent property taxes. Yes $60 million dollars. This amount does not include the interest and penalties that are due.

Forty one percent are owner occupants.  2575 of balances are greater than $5,000.  Some have taxes due back to 2000, yes eleven years of back taxes.

Study it yourself with the City Treasurer’s Data

Prediction: A lot more foreclosures are on the horizon

Dec 01

In addition to possibly increasing the middle income tax burden, some of the proposed changes may cause real estate values to fall up to 15%.

The effect will most likely hit neighborhoods with the highest rates of owner occupancy the hardest.

This is similar to how Milwaukee short changed owner occupants when they shifted various costs from property taxes to the water bill. By that move a few hundred dollars that were deductible as property taxes simply became a nondeductible out of pocket expense.

Read the LA Times’ view on removing tax deductions for homeowners.

 

 

 

May 10

Tax assessment appeal period will close on Monday the 16th at 4:45 PM.

You can get paper forms at the Assessor’s office Room 507, City Hall 200 E Wells, by phone at 414-286-3651or via the web by visiting: http://city.milwaukee.gov/assessor

On the bottom of the left hand panel click on “Ask the Assessor’s Office.” Then entire the name of the entity which owns the parcel, if different than your own name.Enter the address of the property, your email address, and in the “Question” box type “please send me an assessment appeal form.”  You will get the form back via email, usually within one day.

I recommend all owners who feel their assessed values are above what they could sell today for the assessed value to file a timely objection. Continue reading »

Apr 29
Could you sell your property today for cash at the current assessed value?  If not then you should consider appealing your assessment. 

“An exercise in futility!” you scream, knowing the Board of Review is generally a rubber stamp for the Assessor’s Office.  In general that may be the case. However our attorney and a few other smart lawyers believe the current MIlwaukee assessment process may be flawed as the Assessor refuses to factor the impact on values of the massive number of foreclosure, defaults and short sales in many neighborhoods.  This raises the potential for a class action suit to remediate an intentionally flawed process. Continue reading »

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