Bill Gates just listed the NYC apartment he had bought for his daughter, at a sizable loss.
As more property owners join the rush to sell before their property values plunge even further, and the real estate market freezes over, remember to get your property tax assessment adjusted, so you are stuck over paying each year.
Home Prices Peaked Last Year
According to Zillow, Nassau County, NY home values peaked in September last year. They have been declining since then.
Around a quarter of all listings were pulled off the market in the fall as Redfin reported owners were giving up, following failing to get the prices they hoped for, or getting no offers at all.
While that slide may have just begun, rising interest rates, general inflation, multi-trillion dollar declines in stock values, and mass layoffs are likely to compound and accelerate this decline in 2023.
Just four years after purchasing this NYC pad, Bill Gates has listed it for sale, for a quarter of a million dollars less than he paid for it. With Zillow reporting that over 40% of home listings are selling below their asking prices, chances are that he’ll end up getting a lot less for it than he is asking.
If even the world’s richest people are already taking losses like this, expect a lot more as the market melts down.
Stop Overpaying On Your Property Taxes
Local governments love to reassess and increase property tax assessments and bills when property values go up. They never seem so quick to reduce them when those values fall back down. They are voluntarily trying to give themselves a pay cut.
This is on top of the fact that many homeowners already receive falsely inflated property tax bills already. In the hope that they will just pay them, instead of paying attention and demanding they are corrected.
This often leads to local businesses and homeowners over paying by thousands, tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of dollars each and every year.
This is all before counting the fact that diving home values should also bring down your assessment and annual property tax bill.
Be sure you make it a priority to consult a professional property tax adjuster this year, and find out how much you could be saving by challenging and appealing your assessment.