The value of our house is plummeting. PLUMMETING I TELL YOU. On the Island of Poredom that’s disturbing. I have watched our home value plummet according to zillow.com since the day we bought it. SINCE THE DAY WE BOUGHT IT!! The municipal taxable value dropped a whopping 58,897 in the last year between 2008 and 2009. The sales comparison numbers that the property tax appraisers office gives states that we’ve lost 16.5k in sales comparable numbers. (whatever those are since value is really in the eye or pocket of whomever might want to purchase our home might we want to sell it)
The assessed value is 35k less. 35k LESS in two years!! Even zillow is kinder than that (or they are just liars..guessers, etc.) providing a number that’s a mere 30k less than what we paid. *sigh*
The island of poredom. I’m glad I love our house becauseI’m sure we’re not able to move anytime soon. I’ve watched those numbers plummetting since I signed the mortgage and got the keys. Florida, you are a sad state. I can only say that if we wanted to move, we’d have to be landlords and our monthly mortgage is still less than paying rent on a crappy 2 bedroom apartment.
So imagine my small delight today when I noticed my escrow account on my mortgage has been re-analyzed and the monthly payment is now $18.47 less per month because it appears that our propery insurance is exactly the same but our taxes have gone down by 221.64 a year.  Let’s think here a moment. When your home value plummets your taxes do go down.
Hmmm it’s not often that a bill goes down and not up and so I was happy about this reduction in the monthly payment. Wow 18.47 more in our pockets of poredom. Yippee!!
Errr….*screech the record here* 30-35k loss in value and a monthly savings of 18.47???
Fuck.   That is just not right. And 18.47 won’t even buy me a book (14.99) and a cup of coffee (4.24) unless I have a coupon. Double fuck.
Ugg I stay away from Zillow in hopes that if I return in a year I might see better figures. Adam has been known to pace and foam at the mouth at the horror if for some reason we had to short sell it.
Ohhhhh home ownership. You’re a cruel AND giving bitch.
Ours finally stopped plummeting maybe a year ago. But that’s after a loss of about 150K in 2 years. 530K to around 380K. The county has it assessed even lower this year, but I think they’re wrong (based on neighborhood sales of the same model). But hey, I’ll take lower property taxes (down $800 from last year, double that from when we bought), if they want to cut me a break.
I think Florida is lagging a bit – I read it in Money magazine last year that it would bottom out this year. We started falling in 2006 – we took our lashings early.
I’m trying to ignore it and pretend like it HAS to get better in the next few years. We want to build on our land within the next 4 years, but unless this house is worth selling AND our land has increased in value, it may not happen.
That wholeheartedly sucks!