Amherst, Clarence prepare for challenges to property values

Amherst and Clarence have recently completed townwide reassessments and on Friday began mailing out notices disclosing the new values to their property owners.

“Anytime there is a town or city reassessment or revaluation our phone and our email system starts going haywire,” said Weinmann, an attorney who handles numerous assessment challenges. “Because people, basically, are justified in feeling that they’re already taxed to the max and this is just more taxes coming down the pike.”

Officials with the two towns are prepared for property owners to raise objections to their new assessments.

However, they emphasized reassessments are conducted regularly to ensure properties are valued accurately.

“We’re not raising taxes. We’re not bringing in tax revenue. Our job is to simply divide that tax levy, or the budget, fairly among the taxpayers based on the value of their property,” Amherst Assessor Emily Murphy said in an interview.

After a reassessment, the officials said, some properties rise in value, some remain the same and some fall in value. This depends, primarily, on a review of sales of comparable neighboring properties.

“I can safely say that every house that has sold within the past four years has sold for more money than the assessed value, easily,” Clarence Supervisor Patrick Casilio said.

Weinmann said while reassessments aren’t meant to raise additional tax revenue, he believes they will lead to property tax increases for tens of thousands of property owners – particularly in Amherst.

Weinmann noted the new assessed values come on top of the 11.4% property tax levy increase included in the 2024 Amherst town budget. This raised town taxes on the average Amherst home assessed at $300,000 by $280 this year.

“The levy, of course, is the overall pie that’s being raised by the town,” Weinmann said. “And so when that’s distributed amongst the (44,000) property owners who will receive love notes from the town, the likelihood of taxes going down is extremely small.”

Amherst last conducted a townwide reassessment in 2017.

The town in late 2019 announced it would conduct another as soon as 2021 or 2022 but the Covid-19 pandemic delayed those plans, Murphy said.

“We just wanted the market to kind of level out and see where it went before we started doing the new values,” she said.

The town’s equalization rate reflects the changes in property values. The equalization rate is the state’s way of measuring the level of assessment in a particular municipality.

Amherst’s was at 100 immediately following the 2017 reassessment. This meant the town was assessing property at 100% of its market value, or the price the property could expect to fetch in a sale.

The rate has fallen to 62, meaning properties are assessed at 62% of their full market value. But, according to the town, those estimates may not reflect the actual market value.

“We know that in a town, especially a town like Amherst, not every parcel or property type or neighborhood is appreciating at the same rate,” Murphy said. “So there are people that are assessed lower than they should be and some that are assessed higher than they should be. Which means, ultimately, some people are paying more than their fair share, while others are paying less.”

The town began preparing last spring for the reassessment of its 44,000 properties.

The town hired GAR Associates, a Williamsville appraisal firm, to assist with revaluing the 36,000 residential properties, Murphy said. Staff in the town Assessor’s Office handled the roughly 8,000 commercial properties.

To revalue residential properties, recent sales of comparable properties were analyzed, Murphy said.

“We’re looking at similar locations, similar style, similar size,” she said. “And if homes in their neighborhood are selling higher than what we have them at right now they’re going to probably see a bit of an increase in their taxes.”

Letters with updated assessments started going out to property owners on Friday. The letters include hypothetical information on how much the owner would have owed in town taxes if the new assessments were in place last year.

The notes also include information on how property owners can informally challenge their updated value before beginning a formal assessment grievance.

“The question everybody has to ask is: Is this what I can sell my house for?” Murphy said. “And if not, then that’s where the challenges come in.”

The town said the new assessments will be finalized on July 1 and will apply to the school property tax bill in September and the town and county property tax bill in January.

Clarence also began sending out letters with updated assessments to its property owners on Friday.

The town has stayed on a schedule of reassessing properties every four years, Casilio said.

Clarence has a state equalization rate of 80, meaning properties are assessed at 80% of full market value.

It’s a sign, Casilio said, that assessments aren’t keeping up with the prices homes are selling for in Clarence’s housing market.

“The values are rising quicker than we can keep the assessed value at,” the supervisor said. “We’ve had, for example, a $150,000 assessed ranch house sell for over $300,000.”

The town also hired GAR Associates to help with the revaluation of Clarence’s 13,000 parcels.

Just as with Amherst, the new values are rooted in comparable sales.

“They’re driven by streets and sales on the streets. And the houses are looked at on Google Maps and Street View,” Casilio said. “But they’re not going in the house to see if they have new kitchen countertops or not.”

While homes are “exploding” in value in Clarence, the values for commercial properties, especially office space, are flatter, he said.

Casilio shared a redacted letter that went out to a property assessed at $466,000 in 2023. Its full market value of $582,500 last year will rise to $590,000 under the reassessment.

However, the town Assessor’s Office estimates the property’s total town, county and school tax bill would fall by $304, to $8,896, through the townwide reassessment.

“Your taxes are not necessarily going to be going up proportionately to your house assessment,” Casilio said.

Many property owners are likely to take advantage of the opportunity to challenge their assessments.

“Everybody needs to fight these ‘fair market value’ assessments in Clarence,” reads one comment posted Saturday to the Clarence Community Group on Facebook that received 200 replies.

“My assessment on my house has gone up $123,000. Assessed at 100%. Wow!” states a post in the Nextdoor app that received 118 comments. “I live in a pre-1850 farmhouse, there’s no way it’s worth that much.”