"Did county consider foreclosures properly?"

"Page 3 of the Guilford County “Schedule of Values,”
which covers data behind this year’s real-estate tax revaluation,
cites a statute that says market value is defined as
“the price estimated in terms of money at which the property would sell
between a willing and financially able buyer and a willing seller,
neither being under any compulsion to buy or to sell.”

But on page 7, under “Distressed and Forced Sales,” it says,
“Both foreclosure and short sales have been largely responsible
for a 20 percent decline in the average selling price of existing homes
over the last three years.”

And “staff appraisers will consider all sales that have occurred
in each appraisal neighborhood over the last several years
but a greater weight will be given to comparable sales
that have happened without duress.”

If these two sets of measures contradict each other,
what actually happened to whom in the revaluation?

If computer model-based “mass appraisals” were the main tool,
how did the county know which sales were distressed or forced?

Seems like many at the bottom and the top are going to get a relative tax cut,
and the middle is going to make up the difference."

George Hartzman
Greensboro