Posted on: Friday, January 17, 2003

Fewer O'ahu property owners appealing assessments

By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Staff Writer

Despite concerns that large numbers of O'ahu property owners would appeal their assessments this year, the city's assessment office only received about 1,000 appeals by yesterday's deadline, compared to 4,474 last year.

More appeals are expected to arrive by mail. The postmark deadline was Wednesday.

City Council Budget Committee chairwoman Ann Kobayashi held a meeting on assessments yesterday in response to constituent complaints about increases in property values that will translate into higher property taxes unless rates are reduced.

Real property assessments for approximately 260,000 O'ahu residential properties increased by 6.6 percent over last year, rising to $95.1 billion from $89.2 million.

City property assessor Robert Magota explained that the assessments were up because of the real estate boom over the past year.

"We had a real estate market that took off on us, and it caught a lot of people off guard," he said.

The assessments are based on fair market value, with one factor being the sales price for neighboring or comparable homes. Median sales prices for single family homes rose 12 percent between 2001 and 2002, and condominium prices rose 17 percent.

Realtor Margy Grosswendt said she has been reviewing property tax assessments since a new computer program was introduced last year to come up with property values. She said that in 80 percent of cases, the assessments are accurate, but added that 20 percent are 10 to 30 percent too high.

Grosswendt said she is concerned that the computer program does not take into account the location of a property or whether it has been improved.