Updated: It appears as though the Rhino Times' John Hammer is Financially Illiterate

No Evidence Of Rich Stupid People Club

"The News & Record is promoting a wild theory about a conspiracy
to raise tax values in upper income neighborhoods in Greensboro.

It is a truly whacky idea, and it comes from a truly whacky guy
– George Hartzman
– who has been preaching versions of his conspiracy theory for months.

Hartzman ran for the District 3 City Council seat in 2009
and is a regular speaker from the floor at City Council meetings.

Hartzman has tried hard to recruit The Rhinoceros Times
into his tax-value-conspiracy-theory fold,
but it makes no sense to us.

First you have to assume that the Guilford County commissioners
are heavily involved in the real estate revaluation process,
and they simply are not.

Where did I say that?

Why would the commissioners have to be involved

in a skewed tax revaluation?

If anything, a passive endorsement of the outcome

presented to both City Council and the county commissioners 

that makes them look good

makes more sense than active involvement.

But if you accept that then you have to also assume
that there is a rich property owners club
where the rich property owners get together
and all agree on what property values should be...

What sense does this sentence make?

Why would higher value property owners

purposfully want to increase thier own taxes?

...and further,
that every member of the club is a complete and utter idiot
who understands nothing about real estate and property values.

Further you have to believe that this rich property owners club
and the Guilford County commissioners conspired
and got the county employees in the Tax Department
to commit any number of serious crimes regarding property values.

We looked into it and it all seemed a little farfetched to us.

I know a couple of employees in the Tax Department
and know that they are basically honest,
but also that they have no intention of going to prison
to help some demented rich property owner
who for some inexplicable reason wants to pay more property taxes.

The theory that Hartzman and the News & Record are pushing
is that the rich property owners club wanted to have their property tax values increased...

Why would higher value property owners

purposfully want to increase thier own taxes?

...and right here in the beginning the theory breaks down
because the main thing that is affected by your tax property value
is the amount of property tax you pay.

????????????


"...the main thing that is affected by your tax property value
is the amount of property tax you pay."?

...The tax value is supposed to reflect the market price
but it is an estimate based on comparable real estate in the area.

And since the entire county is done at once,
the Tax Department does not have the time to spend on each piece of property
that an appraiser has.

...The county can't begin to spend several thousand dollars
on each of the roughly 200,000 pieces of property in Guilford County.

So they used a software package that did it for them?

Funny what can be done with computer software.

Rich property owners know that if the tax value of their home or office is low 

what that means is they pay less property tax, and,
when the property goes up for sale,
they get to explain that the tax value is low,
so the new property owner will also get to pay less property tax
– at least until the next revaluation.

But this is Hartzman's theory, or it is what it was.

What's my theory?


"...this is Hartzman's theory, 
or it is what it was."?

Hartzman has lots of theories about things
and sees more conspiracies than most people.

I must be insane.

What is astounding is that he convinced the News & Record
that this theory was worth a couple of front page stories.

I brainwashed the entire News & Record staff?

District 5 Guilford County commissioner candidate Jeff Phillips said
he learned a lesson about speaking to the News & Record.

He said that in his opinion the theory of a conspiracy
to artificially raise property taxes was that it was "highly unlikely."

He did say that he does have questions
about the way Guilford County reevaluated the property for 2012,
but that the idea that there was some kind of conspiracy was farfetched.

It's Hartzman's theory that a grand conspiracy in Guilford County
has raised property values in wealthy neighborhoods
because wealthy property owners didn't want their property values to go down...

Incorrect.

I have found that property values in wealthy neighborhoods went up

and the low end got crushed

and the results do not match what occured.

Where did I say anywhere 

"wealthy property owners didn't want their property values to go down..."?

...and this also allowed the Guilford County commissioners
to slightly lower the property tax rate,
but the county will still collect more property tax revenue.

?????????????????

Guilford County commissioners lowered the property tax, 
gave out  vacation etc...after the budget was adopted
and eliminated what the county cited as a need for a 9.5 cent tax increase.

What seems to be overlooked is that the figure they are all concerned about

is the total value of the property in Guilford County in 2012
versus the total value of the property based on 2004 values.

Actually, the figure to be concerned with

is last year's versus this year's

and the effect on Greensboro and Guilford County budgets
and the differences between Guilford County's results
and the results of 13 other counties.

Although the value of much of the property in Guilford County
has dropped from what it was in 2008,
it has to go all the way back to 2004 to drop in tax value...

Which, according to UNCG's Don Jud, 

went back to 1990's era values.

John "financially illiterate" Hammer?
September 20, 2012



http://www.uncg.edu/bae/cber/tbi/apr12/index.htm
.
.
.
In March 2012, Guilford County Manager Brenda Jones Fox

inserted a temporary bonus in a consent agenda
for county employees retiring,
only after more than 30 years of service.

When Mrs. Fox announced her retirement in April 2012,
she stood to recieve another $44,500.

Mrs. Fox was not fired.

In August 2012, Guilford County's Commisioners voted
to give Guilford County employees a $250 bonus
and 40 hours of extra paid-time-off.
 
In May, 2012, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina 
moved to "independently" audit thier 2011 Real Estate Revaluation
after numerous complaints of innacurate real estate values.

Guilford County's unemployment rate went from about 5.5% in 2004
to about 10% in 2012.

I believe the statistical chances of the high end of revaluations going up
while the low end,
probably about half of which is owned by relatively local investors
goes down as significantly
is relatively slim to none.

Please Disseminate: Search Directions to Compare Greensboro and Guilford County Real Estate Revaluation Assessment Outcomes

Guilford County GIS Data Viewer

Click on Parcel Search in the upper right hand side of the page linked above.

Updated with Search Directions: A Comparison of Four

Greensboro and Guilford County Real Estate Revaluation Assessment Outcomes:

Guess Who?

We recieved our 2012 Revaluation Assessed Value Today.

Enter number and street, without "drive" or "court" after

and then click search.

Click on Tax Appraisal Information on the right hand side
and a new window will come up.

The new tax value is in the bottom right corner.

Click on Tax bill in the upper right area,
which should open a new window.

Clicking on the top link with lots of numbers under the headings on the left
should bring up another window with the old value in the middle on the left.

Divide.

Subtract.

Compare.

City of Greensboro and Guilford County Information Request on Real Estate Revaluation Assessments

Please provida data for all Guilford County revaluation assessements
including before and after values of all properties in a comma delimited format
with before and after values seperated, which can be measured in different ways.

George Hartzman

Are rising financial markets in the best interests of the financial news industry?

 

Sales of new homes rose in February

for the first time in seven months

…another sign that the housing market is thawing

 

New-Home Sales Rise 4.7%

The Wall Street Journal

March 26, 2009

Why would a mainstream news story entitled

New-Home Sales Rise 4.7%

not mention year over year sales were down 41%

or that January 2009 new home sales fell 10%

to the lowest level since reporting began in 1963

48.2% below January 2008 estimates?

 

Who controls the past controls the future

 

Who controls the present controls the past

 

George Orwell

If $100 loses 50% and then rises 5%

how should most feel about having $52.50 instead of $100

after enduring conjured platitudes?

 

If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed

 

 If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed

 

Mark Twain

Must Read: New York Times David Streitfeld on Residential Real Estate and Stimulus Spending

"Grim Housing Choice: Help Today’s Owners or Future Ones

The unexpectedly deep plunge in home sales this summer is likely to force the Obama administration to choose between future homeowners and current ones, a predicament officials had been eager to avoid.

Did economic stimulus packages borrow from future taxpayers
to pacify the present populace?

Over the last 18 months, the administration has rolled out just about every program it could think of to prop up the ailing housing market, using tax credits, mortgage modification programs, low interest rates, government-backed loans and other assistance intended to keep values up and delinquent borrowers out of foreclosure. The goal was to stabilize the market until a resurgent economy created new households that demanded places to live.

As the economy again sputters and potential buyers flee — July housing sales sank 26 percent from July 2009 — there is a growing sense of exhaustion with government intervention. Some economists and analysts are now urging a dose of shock therapy that would greatly shift the benefits to future homeowners: Let the housing market crash.

If the government habitually bails out overextended homeowners,
is it good to overextend?

When prices are lower, these experts argue, buyers will pour in, creating the elusive stability the government has spent billions upon billions trying to achieve.

...The further the market descends, however, the more miserable one group — important both politically and economically — will be: the tens of millions of homeowners who have already seen their home values drop an average of 30 percent.

The poorer these owners feel, the less likely they will indulge in the sort of consumer spending the economy needs to recover. If they see an identical house down the street going for half what they owe, the temptation to default might be irresistible. That could make the market’s current malaise seem minor.

If the government manipulates financial markets to stimulate demand
after too many borrowers acquired too much unsustainable debt,
would intervention reward some borrowers,
homebuilders, appraisers, lenders, securitizers, investors etc…,
who may have contributed to causing the problems in the first place?

Caught in the middle is an administration that gambled on a recovery that is not happening.

Did some economic and political leaders
bail themselves and their compatriots out of their own mistakes,
by pledging trillions of debt and newly created money,
knowing the consequences would be handed down to the unaware
of following generations?

“The administration made a bet that a rising economy would solve the housing problem and now they are out of chips,” said Howard Glaser, a former Clinton administration housing official with close ties to policy makers in the administration. “They are deeply worried and don’t really know what to do.”

If some financial markets are “supported,” “stimulated” or “subsidized”
to stabilize demand by lowering housing supplies and foreclosures
after too many borrowers acquired too much unsustainable debt,
could intervention unintentionally create unexpected affects?

...If last year’s tax credit was supposed to be a bridge over a rough patch, it ended with a glimpse of the abyss. The average home now takes more than a year to sell. Add in the homes that are foreclosed but not yet for sale and the total is greater still.

Builders are in even worse shape. Sales of new homes are lower than in the depths of the recession of the early 1980s, when mortgage rates were double what they are now, unemployment was pervasive and the gloom was at least as thick.

If the natural cycle of laissez faire capitalism
revolves between risk and aversion,
what should happen if government intervention perverts the process
to forestall short term economic pain?

The deteriorating circumstances have given a new voice to the “do nothing” chorus, whose members think the era of trying to buy stability while hoping the market will catch fire — called “extend and pretend” or “delay and pray” — has run its course.

“We have had enough artificial support and need to let the free market do its thing,” said the housing analyst Ivy Zelman.

At what point do bailouts do more harm than good?

Michael L. Moskowitz, president of Equity Now, a direct mortgage lender that operates in New York and seven other states, also advocates letting the market fall. “Prices are still artificially high,” he said. “The government is discriminating against the renters who are able to buy at $200,000 but can’t at $250,000.”

A small decline in home prices might not make too much of a difference to a slack economy. But an unchecked drop of 10 percent or more might prove entirely discouraging to the millions of owners just hanging on, especially those who bought in the last few years under the impression that a turnaround had already begun.

The government is on the hook for many of these mortgages, another reason policy makers have been aggressively seeking stability. What helped support the market last year could now cause it to crumble.

Did some stabilize financial markets in the short term
to defend political legacies and financial interests,
regardless of long term consequences?

...Government-backed loans in 2009 went to buyers with higher credit scores. Yet the percentage of first-year defaults was still 5 percent...

“These are at-risk buyers,” said Sam Khater, a CoreLogic economist. “They have very little equity, and that’s the largest predictor of default.”

...The idea has gained little traction. Instead, there is a sense that, even with much more modest notions, government intervention is not the answer. The National Association of Realtors, the driving force behind the credit last year, is not calling for a new round of stimulus."

David Streitfeld
New York Times

If housing prices continue to fall, what could be some implications of a Guilford County and Greensboro property tax reassessment?

 

Massive "Shadow Inventory" Overhang Will Keep Pressure On House Prices

 

Houses prices, like everything else, are a function of supply and demand.

 

The inventory (supply) of houses on the market has dropped significantly in recent months, fueling hope that the housing bust is over and done with.

 

Unfortunately, the inventory of houses listed for sale may severely understate the actual inventory of houses owners want to sell.  This, in turn, may be creating a far too rosy picture of supply and demand.

 

Amherst Securities has produced a scary analysis of this "shadow inventory" overhang, which Amherst estimates is a shocking 7 million houses.  (The consensus is only 2-3 million).

 

7 million houses represents 1.4-times the number of houses currently sold in the country each year.  So this represents a massive overhang.  As these houses hit the market in future years, they will keep pressure on house prices.  This will likely either lead to further declines in prices or delay the recovery.

 

The build-up of shadow inventory, according to Amherst, is the result of three factors:

 

                     High "transition" rates. 

                     More mortgages that fall behind by 30 and 60 days

                     are progressing through to default.

 

                              Low "cure" rates.  Fewer delinquent mortgages than usual

                              are returning to performing loans.

 

                              "Liquidations" of deliquent loans

                              are taking much longer than usual.

                              …Many houses are early in the foreclosure process.

 

Here is the firm's bottom line: We are concerned that, in light of this housing overhang, the stabilization we have seen in home prices the last few months is temporary. 

 

Henry Blodget

The Business Insider, September 30, 2009

http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-massive-shadow-inventory-overhang-will-keep-pressure-on-house-prices-2009-9

If housing prices continue to fall, what could be some implications of a Guilford County and Greensboro property tax reassessment?

 

Massive "Shadow Inventory" Overhang Will Keep Pressure On House Prices

 

Houses prices, like everything else, are a function of supply and demand.

 

The inventory (supply) of houses on the market has dropped significantly in recent months, fueling hope that the housing bust is over and done with.

 

Unfortunately, the inventory of houses listed for sale may severely understate the actual inventory of houses owners want to sell.  This, in turn, may be creating a far too rosy picture of supply and demand.

 

Amherst Securities has produced a scary analysis of this "shadow inventory" overhang, which Amherst estimates is a shocking 7 million houses.  (The consensus is only 2-3 million).

 

7 million houses represents 1.4-times the number of houses currently sold in the country each year.  So this represents a massive overhang.  As these houses hit the market in future years, they will keep pressure on house prices.  This will likely either lead to further declines in prices or delay the recovery.

 

The build-up of shadow inventory, according to Amherst, is the result of three factors:

 

                     High "transition" rates. 

                     More mortgages that fall behind by 30 and 60 days

                     are progressing through to default.

 

                              Low "cure" rates.  Fewer delinquent mortgages than usual

                              are returning to performing loans.

 

                              "Liquidations" of deliquent loans

                              are taking much longer than usual.

                              …Many houses are early in the foreclosure process.

 

Here is the firm's bottom line: We are concerned that, in light of this housing overhang, the stabilization we have seen in home prices the last few months is temporary. 

 

Henry Blodget

The Business Insider, September 30, 2009

http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-massive-shadow-inventory-overhang-will-keep-pressure-on-house-prices-2009-9

If Guilford County Commissioner Mike Winstead proposed giving his business taxpayer money, should he recuse himself from voting and/or accepting the incentives?

Commissioner Mike Winstead…lobbied to make mixed-use development eligible for incentives.

 

Under the current plan, only commercial and industrial developments could apply.  Apartment complexes and residential-commercial developments would be exempt.

 

“This is good for the real estate development,” said Winstead, co-owner of the Greensboro firm Mega Builders.  “And I think that people know that real estate housing is what needs help.”

 

Gerald Witt

Greensboro News and Record, September 17, 2009

 

 

Subsidizing multi-family housing construction?

 

I cannot believe that the Guilford County Board of Commissioners is considering offering the same tax rebate to developers of multi-family housing in Guilford County. Put on the table for consideration by multi-family housing developer/Commissioner Mike Winstead, this self-serving motion does little to serve the best interests of Guilford County. Houses aren’t selling, largely impacted by too much supply; apartment rentals are barely holding their own…and somehow with all that, it makes good sense in the minds of some to further glut the market by offering tax rebates to mulit-family developers to build more housing – driving up vacancy rates and therefore hurting the profitability and operability of existing properties.

 

…If the marketplace needs more multi-family housing, then builders will build it and the market will support it – without tax rebates.

 

Rob Bencini

September 17, 2009

 

 

OK...this is further evidence that your County Commissioners are NOT looking out for YOU, the taxpayer. Rather, this is blatant evidence that the Commissioners are looking out for their own selves!…Where are the folks who serve for the betterment of all and not just special interests?

 

StealYourFace

Greensboro News and Record Reader Comment, September 17, 2009

 

 

…that is downright hostile to existing property owners. It is, the way I see it and the way I hope other voters will as well, patronage to the development industry at the expense of the rest of us. There is enough pressure on real estate prices, our dumb county commissioners think economic development means incentivizing additional downward pressures.

 

…Let's see, Winstead builds mixed-use Winstead commons. The residential remains largely unsold two years later, now builder of vacant mixed use developments wants incentives for more mixed use development for a county anchored by the country's fourth most vacant city, which is shrinking in population.

 

This poorly considered tinkering could have serious long term negative consequences.

 

Roch101

Comments at EdCone.com, September 17, 2009

If Guilford County Commissioner Mike Winstead proposed giving his business taxpayer money, should he recuse himself from voting and/or accepting the incentives?

Commissioner Mike Winstead…lobbied to make mixed-use development eligible for incentives.

 

Under the current plan, only commercial and industrial developments could apply.  Apartment complexes and residential-commercial developments would be exempt.

 

“This is good for the real estate development,” said Winstead, co-owner of the Greensboro firm Mega Builders.  “And I think that people know that real estate housing is what needs help.”

 

Gerald Witt

Greensboro News and Record, September 17, 2009

 

 

Subsidizing multi-family housing construction?

 

I cannot believe that the Guilford County Board of Commissioners is considering offering the same tax rebate to developers of multi-family housing in Guilford County. Put on the table for consideration by multi-family housing developer/Commissioner Mike Winstead, this self-serving motion does little to serve the best interests of Guilford County. Houses aren’t selling, largely impacted by too much supply; apartment rentals are barely holding their own…and somehow with all that, it makes good sense in the minds of some to further glut the market by offering tax rebates to mulit-family developers to build more housing – driving up vacancy rates and therefore hurting the profitability and operability of existing properties.

 

…If the marketplace needs more multi-family housing, then builders will build it and the market will support it – without tax rebates.

 

Rob Bencini

September 17, 2009

 

 

OK...this is further evidence that your County Commissioners are NOT looking out for YOU, the taxpayer. Rather, this is blatant evidence that the Commissioners are looking out for their own selves!…Where are the folks who serve for the betterment of all and not just special interests?

 

StealYourFace

Greensboro News and Record Reader Comment, September 17, 2009

 

 

…that is downright hostile to existing property owners. It is, the way I see it and the way I hope other voters will as well, patronage to the development industry at the expense of the rest of us. There is enough pressure on real estate prices, our dumb county commissioners think economic development means incentivizing additional downward pressures.

 

…Let's see, Winstead builds mixed-use Winstead commons. The residential remains largely unsold two years later, now builder of vacant mixed use developments wants incentives for more mixed use development for a county anchored by the country's fourth most vacant city, which is shrinking in population.

 

This poorly considered tinkering could have serious long term negative consequences.

 

Roch101

Comments at EdCone.com, September 17, 2009

What if what you think isn’t?

…the members of Greensboro’s boards and commissions

people appointed to represent city residents

on issues that affect quality of life

…aren’t exactly representative of the community

 

Forty-five percent of the members

are real estate professionals or lawyers

 

Does thinking you understand what another says

mean you hear what they mean?

 

City statute dictates that the [rental] board

must be made up of people with business interests

 and people who represent housing advocacy groups

and city districts

 

But in reality

the board has few people who are advocates for residents

 

Seven of the 10 current members work in the real estate industry

 

…real estate professionals also made up more than half of the members

 on the nine-member Zoning Commission

a body that makes decisions that could kill or allow new development

 

Should information be evaluated

by origin and relative legitimacy?

 

…the nine-member Planning Board

which oversees land policies

has two members who are in the real estate industry

 and two who are attorneys working for real estate clients

 

City boards lack diversity

Amanda Lehmert

Greensboro News and Record

 

Can most people be fooled most of the time?

Property Taxes

Homeowners across the country

are challenging their property tax bills in droves

as the value of their homes drop

threatening local governments with another big drain on their budgets

 

If the City of Greensboro projected property tax revenues

to increase from $151,799,771 in 2008-2009

to $155,148,800 in 2009-2010

which comes to about a third of revenues…?

 

The tax appeals and reassessments

present a new budget nightmare for governments

 

…76 percent of large counties

said that falling property tax revenue

was significantly affecting their budgets

 

…officials across the country say there is no question

that the number of appeals has risen from the usual trickle to a flood

 

The recession has already taken a significant toll on states’ budgets

as rising joblessness, a weak business climate

and a drop in consumer demand have cut sharply into receipts

from taxes on sales, personal income and business earnings

 

The pain at the state level

is trickling down to county and local governments

 

The appeals are not just coming from individual homeowners

 

Condominium associations and entire subdivisions

are pushing for new tax assessments

as are companies that own office towers

industrial parks and shopping malls

 

Tax Bill Appeals Take Rising Toll on Governments

Jack Healy

New York Times, July 4, 2009

If a few purchased relatively inexpensive homesnear a landfillestablished more than 60 years agowhy should the many unaffectedwho may have paid more for their residencesto avoid potential hazards and easementsbe taxed to have trash shipped elsewhereduring a recession?

GreensboroGuilford Countyand North Carolina III

Mortgage insurer United Guaranty is laying off 160 employees

mostly from its Greensboro headquarters

 

United Guaranty…had employed about 500 people locally

 

United Guaranty has been hobbled by the nationwide housing crisis

 

It insures mortgage lenders against default by homeowners

and those defaults have skyrocketed in the past two years

 

United Guaranty lays off 160

Triad Business Journal, June 23, 2009

 

Were many investors artificially motivated

with easily borrowed low cost money

to purchase property advertised as perpetually rising

by the real estate and the media industries after 9/11?

 

As financial and real estate markets deflated

did relatively high cost durable goods purchases diminish

causing production to fall and unemployment to rise

creating more homeowners in financial distress

more wide spread debt defaults, tightening lending terms

and further housing and financial sector distress?

 

Sales of existing single-family homes in Greensboro

fell about 29 percent in May

 

…there were 426 existing homes sold in May

compared to 602 sold in May 2008

 

…a 3 percent fall from April

when there were 439 home sales

 

…total dollar volume for all sales

was down 33 percent, to $71.6 million

compared to May 2008, when it was $106.7 million

 

April’s total dollar volume was $65.5 million

 

Greensboro’s home sales fall 29 percent

Triad Business Journal, June 23, 2009

 

160 employees x $50,000 per year = $8,000,000