City Nears Completion of Comprehensive 2017 Property Reassessment

The St. Louis City Assessor’s Office is nearing completion of its 2017 reassessment of all real estate within the City limits. For property tax purposes, state law requires that such reassessments or reappraisals be conducted every odd-numbered year.

“The state constitution requires the value we place on the property reflects fair market value,” City Assessor Freddie Dunlap said. The Assessor’s Office uses a mass appraisal system to value real estate and then compares the results with real estate sales. The process assures the City’s reassessment values are in line with the market.

“In all reassessment periods, some values go up, some go down and some stay the same,” Dunlap said. “The market rebounded in 2015 and 2016 and is continuing to do well as we go into 2017. Because of those market increases, we are looking at significantly higher reassessments this year compared to any other reassessment period since the real estate market crash in 2008.”    

The total increase in reassessment growth is approximately 7 percent for all real estate – Residential and Commercial property. The growth is about 9 percent when new construction is included.  

For residential property only, the total increase in reassessment value is approximately 12 percent on existing property and approximately 13 percent when new construction is included.  

“The market has been great in some areas of the City and not so great in others; that’s just how our market works,” Dunlap said. “The amount of change varies from neighborhood to neighborhood and even from house to house in some cases.”

Commercial property has increased approximately 4 percent, mainly due to new construction.   

The Assessor is required to physically review any residential properties that increase by 15 percent or more during a reassessment period. That amounted to approximately 17,000 physical property reviews during the 2017 reassessment.   

State law requires the assessor to notify all property owners of any increase in property values. Those notices also require an estimate of the taxes that will result from the change in assessed value and expected changes in tax rates. Taxpayers whose values stay the same or go down will not be mailed a notification, however all new 2017 values will be posted and can be viewed on the City’s Address and Property Search website on or after May 10^th.    

Notices are expected to be mailed on or around May 10.

Contact

The following phone numbers will be active beginning May 11, 2017

For questions on Residential Property call 314-589-6581

For questions on Commercial Property call 314-589-6586