Another assessment...

Before people start thinking of me as a cheap prick, I have asked for my home to be re-assessed on only one of my homes. My Stittsville property has increased in value, but ultimately, I do not have any objections to the assessed value. My Ottawa property on Arlington, however, was a different story.

Now, I want to say that I think that the municipal property assessment corporation (MPAC) is somewhat poorly organized. First, they had re-assessed the value of my home at $191,000 in the spring. I was perfectly happy with this number as it saves me a lot of money when it comes to property taxes. Despite the re-assessment only being 6 months old, they re-performed the valuation of my property and my property's value increased to $253,000!!! A $62,000 increase in only 6 months! Although this would be a nice return on my investment, it means that my property taxes have just shot through the roof. To make matters worse, the City of Ottawa is proposing a minimum 4.9% tax increase next year as well.

Now, I think a 32% increase in my property value over 6 months is a bit ridiculous. This is especially true given the fact that all I've done to renovate the place is get rid of the garbage, and paint a couple of the walls. Therefore, I got on my horse and called MPAC. They agreed to re-assess the home yet again.

This time, however, they decided that they needed to inspect the inside of the house. I had no problems with this as I could easily justify the value of the house being lower. I have the advantage of having my neighbour having his home listed for sale. He is asking $214,900 at the moment. His home is in worse shape though than mine, but nonetheless it is likely the best comparable. Given the fact that my house isn't in perfect condition, I was able to get an idea of what my home should be valued at.

Before I say what the home was re-assessed at, I want to give people a warning if they are thinking about getting a re-assessment performed. MPAC has access to records of house listings. I had listed my house in the summer to see if I could sell it. I listed at $259,000 at the time. Hence, they had made a valuation of my home based in part on my listing price for my home. Arguably, this is a decent estimate of the value of the home. Thankfully, I had received no formal offers on the house and only received calls of interest. I had a verbal offer for my house, but nothing written on paper. This saved me hundreds of dollars on my property taxes as a result. Therefore, if you plan on living in a home, please be careful in listing your house unless you truly want to sell. You may be re-assessed on your property taxes as an undesired consequence.

After all of this, my home was re-assessed at $218,000. I am okay with this amount. It still represents a 14% increase from my original assessment, but it probably accurately reflects the value of my home. I could argue the amount further by appealing the decision to a tribunal, but ultimately, I am not going to be able to save that much more money. I did manage to lower the tax base by $35,000, so I am quite happy with that.

MPAC - My new enemy...

If you've been reading this blog for awhile now, you might remember the time when I bought my Arlington house that I decided to get my house re-assessed for property tax purposes. I was successful in my endeavors as I had my assessment base change from $233,000 to 191,000. This reduction of $42,000 meant that I saved this year on my property tax bill. I probably saved close to $500 this year. I was very happy with my work.

Unfortunately, the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) has decided that all homes are being re-assessed for 2008, as most properties were assessed last in 2005. Since they were doing all properties, I had both my Fringewood and Arlington properies re-assessed. Now, the standard increase has been 3.36% in the City of Ottawa. This translates into that my Fringewood home is now assessed at $214,000, an increase of 3.16% year over year, from 190,000. I have no real issue here. In fact, I can likely find evidence that the Fringewood property is worth more, but I will keep my mouth shut for now.

On the other hand, my Arlington property was a bit of a shocker. Despite having a re-assessment performed only 6 months ago, my property tax base increased from $191,000 to $253,000. $62,000!!! This translates to an 8.12% increase year over year since 2005. This is more than double the rate of the rest of the City of Ottawa. I am planning to appeal this decision. This means probably $3-4K over the next few years in extra property taxes. The increase is supposed to be phased in, but I'm going to do everything in my power to reverse this decision.

I have evidence to support my position. Although it's nice to see the assessed value of my home increase (as it means my home's value has increased), I do not want to be spending a fortune on property taxes. I have started the appeal process, and along with my evidence, I will present everthing in future post (maybe tomorrow even).

Full House.. and some tidbits...

Although not quite the Danny, Joey, Jesse, Becky, DJ, Steph and Michelle, the rooms are now full in my house. Scotty moves in today and I had spent last night trying to get a new coat of paint on his walls before he moved in. I've been so busy lately that I have been postponing some of the household repairs, but this weekend should see an improvement in that regard.

On a side note, there are no more houses listed in the Fringewood area of Stittsville. Since I own a house in that area, it will be interesting to see how the market develops over the winter. It's not an overly active area, but the surrounding area is seeing a lot of new development. I'm thinking of disposing of the property in the spring or summer next year, but I think it will be more market dependent.

Good news on the international front today. In the roller coaster that is the economy, the US has reported a better than expected performance in the 3rd quarter. Since it had been doom and gloom in the US, any news of this sort is expected to help the world's markets, and hopefully will make this economic slowdown a very brief and mild one.

Heating options

It's time to go shopping. Now, you won't see me carrying any European handbags soon, but I am excited about the prospects of learning a few things. I need some new heating systems. At least, I think I do. I want to buy a new furnace for my Arlington property to increase the efficiency of the furnace and hopefully save some money in the long-run on my gas bills.

Now, with the Arlington properly, there aren't that many options for me. I can go with a mid-efficiency or high-efficiency gas furnace. You're thinking, big woop. The interesting savings will come from my decision regarding the fringewood property.

At Fringewood, it is heated using electricity. It's probably the most expensive form of heating, so I want to use the natural gas that is available to me. I have some more options here. I can go with a gas fireplace which will reduce the dependency on the electric baseboards, or I can try to see how much it would cost to convert the whole system to gas heated. There are probably not a lot of savings to be had on such a huge cost outlay, but it may make the property sellable in the future.

Anyways, I thought I would mention this stuff as I have not written lately. I'm still trying to wheel and deal, but it gets hard when I've been at the office so much lately. 5 more days!!!

Tenant issues

Yesterday, I had my first issue with the house at 75 Arlington. The tenants had called me last night while I was at work to tell me that the furnace was not working. When I bought the house, the home inspector had indicated that the furnace was quite old and that there would be a good chance that it would need to be replaced in the near future. I didn't think it would be so soon.

I called Direct Energy to come and check out the furnace. Unfortunately, they wanted me to pay the service man the day of the service, so I had to attend. They told me over the phone that it was going to be anywhere between 8-12 in the morning. Being an accountant, I was not thrilled with this appointment. This meant that I would have to leave work at some point or be late for work. It means that I will have to work a couple of nights pretty late to make up the time.

Thankfully, the service man called me pretty early in the morning, so that I was only minimally late for work. I called to say that I was going to be late, and I bet they understood, but I would have certainly preferred not to be late.

When everything is running smoothly, being a landlord is a great way to make money. There are very few headaches when things are running smoothly. On the other hand, it just seems like the bad things always occur at the worst times. When I had water issues with my Fringewood property, my parents were out of town, so I could not rely on them to help me out. It was my property anyways, and I would have done the work myself, like I had, but it would have been nice if someone like my dad was able to check on things during the daytime while I was at work. It just helps to relieve the stress a bit.