Don’t Panic: Let’s Talk Reassessments

On Saturday afternoon, my husband brought in the mail. As I cleaned out the refrigerator to make room for the groceries we had just bought, he informed me that our property assessment had landed and quickly read me the results. My first thought wasn’t even about our property values – instead, I thought, “Oh no… the Facebook forums are going to be in flames.”

They did not disappoint.

While many seemed shocked that their home values had increased so significantly, others appeared to understand that this was inevitable, as home prices have been skyrocketing across the country for half a decade. Still, others chose to blame certain political parties. At least one person got to the heart of the matter: “People love equity until they have to pay for it.” 

No one wants to pay more taxes. Yet, I’ve never met anyone who hopes their property values decrease. In fact, plenty of Americans experienced precipitous drops in home values during the crash of 2008, and boy, did they get screwed. Millions of people lost their homes. I doubt any of them are eager to repeat the experience. Not coincidentally, that housing crash is still having an impact on home values today. 

Back in 2018, The Washington Post reported, “​​Prices across the U.S., which fell 33 percent during the recession, have rebounded and are now up more than 50 percent since hitting the bottom, according to CoreLogic, a global property analytics site. Still, some markets in Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Nevada have yet to reach their pre-recession levels.” In the meantime, new home starts have not kept up with demand: “There were about 20,000 less starts per million people in the 2010s than in previous decades,” reports Business Insider. 

Source: "Here's what happens when private equity buys homes in your neighborhood", NPR

And, instead of selling the family home and moving to The Villages, Boomers are staying put in their large homes, which makes it harder for subsequent generations to move up the property ladder. So, while many retired people complain that they can't afford their property taxes because they are on a fixed income, they are part of the perfect storm of reasons property values are skyrocketing in the first place. Now, throw COVID-19 and the mass exodus from cities (and the bidding wars that ensued) into the mix. But it gets worse.

Enter: Private Equity. “The response to this development — of Wall Street buying Main Street, or at least some of its cul-de-sacs — has been bipartisan, populist and patriotic condemnation. Both JD Vance and Kamala Harris called for bans on these corporate landlords. Since houses tend to rise in value over time, homeownership has been a primary way that middle-class families build wealth,” reports NPR. “But now private equity was outbidding aspiring homeowners, making it more expensive to buy a home and pocketing the appreciation in home values.”

In 2024, CT Mirror reported, “House prices in Connecticut were up nearly 10% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2024, a trend of increased prices that’s stretched across the past couple of years as housing stock remains historically low.” In fact, last year, Connecticut had the seventh-highest price appreciation nationwide. According to the article, the median sale price statewide was $440,000. This got me wondering how the Stafford housing market has been impacted by the past five years, so I reached out to local Realtor Kathy Geryk, who dug into MLS Data for me. Over the past year, the median home sale price in Stafford was $330,000, which is still significantly below the 2024 state average. In 2020, that same number was $214,900.

Since 2020, the start of the pandemic, as well as the last reevaluation, Geryk’s data suggest that the average sale price of a single-family home in Stafford has increased from $215,945 to $341,158. That’s a more than 50% increase in the average sales price of single-family homes in just five years. For condos, the average sale price has gone from $99,157 to $181,623, nearly double. The data also suggests that houses are still selling for over asking price, as the average closing price in 2025 is higher than the average listing price of $325,611 for single-family homes and $177,456 for condos. 

For anyone selling their home, this is excellent news, especially if you’ve been sitting on that asset for decades. However, if you’re thinking, “Increased sales prices won’t help me because I’m not going anywhere,” well, you could always borrow against your own assets and live off that money, tax-free. (I'm not a financial expert, so you probably shouldn't listen to me, but I hear rich people like to do this instead of actually working and earning taxable income.) Alternatively, you could attend the next Planning & Zoning Commission meeting to express your support for the zoning changes the commissioners have discussed to help alleviate the housing crisis. And if you happen to have acreage and a tremendous amount of equity, you could even be a part of the solution by building more housing.

Assessments aren’t the same as the potential resale value of your home, but when the latter goes up, the former tends to as well. According to Sec. 12-62 of the State statutes, “When conducting a revaluation, an assessor shall use generally accepted mass appraisal methods which may include, but need not be limited to, the market sales comparison approach to value, the cost approach to value and the income approach to value. Prior to the completion of each revaluation, the assessor shall conduct a field review.” (You can learn more about the three approaches to valuation here.)

It’s also important to note that the state requires towns to conduct reassessments every five years, and they say, “The purpose is to ensure uniformity in real property valuations by eliminating inequities that may have developed since the previous revaluation.”

“Mill Rate - A mill is equal to $1.00 of tax for each $1,000 of assessment. To calculate the property tax, multiply the assessment of the property by the mill rate and divide by 1,000. For example, a property with an assessed value of $50,000 located in a municipality with a mill rate of 20 mills would have a property tax bill of $1,000 per year.” - State of Connecticut

Here’s the thing people always seem to forget: Reevaluation years that coincide with a significant increase in property values often present an opportunity to lower the Mill Rate. See that big dip from 2004 to 2005 in the above chart? That happens to coincide with the pre-crash bubble and a reevaluation year. I want to emphasize that the Mill Rate is not necessarily a direct indicator of your tax burden; the mill rate can decrease, while your taxes remain the same or even increase. However, it also means that your property values can skyrocket, while your taxes remain the same. We won’t know precisely how the new assessments will impact your tax burden until a Mill Rate is set, using the new Grand List. 

So, this would be an excellent year to attend any meetings where the budget will be discussed, and those are just around the corner. Don't wait until the referendum.