LOS ANGELES - Homeowners across the nation are looking to county governments to reassess the values of their homes in the face of flattening and falling prices that have befallen scores of markets from coast to coast.
Downward assessments appear to be most pronounced in areas where the housing market was exploding just a few years ago, or where economic conditions are poorest.
In Maricopa County, the largest in Arizona, a "large percentage" of the 1 million single-family homeowners will see their houses reassessed at lower rates in February, said Keith Russell, the county assessor.
In Phoenix, the largest city in the county, housing prices fell 8.8 percent over the last year, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index, which monitors the residential housing market.
Among the roughly 200,000 parcels in Lucas County, Ohio, 7,083 owners requested reassessments in 2007, about 10 times the yearly average, said Anita Lopez, the assessor, who ran for office on a campaign to adjust assessments.
"Citizens know the market is slow if not declining," Lopez said, "and they are informed and feel comfortable in challenging their county values. People here can't sell their homes, they have less money, and they don't understand why the government is asking for more money in a declining housing market."
Local governments, which rely heavily on property taxes, will have to find ways to replace lost revenue or face having to cut services, lay off staff members or delay projects. The possibility of those losses has alarmed officials in areas already facing large numbers of foreclosures and slumping sales, products, in part, of the mortgage credit crisis that has rippled through the country.
While every state and local government has its own methods for assessing home values for tax purposes - some do it annually, some every five years, and everything in between - many counties are hearing from residents that they would like their homes reassessed, or have taken steps to bring the taxes down of their own volition.
"Government has been the beneficiary of increasing home prices," said Relmond Van Daniker, the executive director of the Association of Government Accountants. "And now they are on the other side of that, and they will have to reduce expenses."
While in some areas, a county or city is required to make whole any loss in revenues to schools, public education is the frequent benefactor of property tax revenues. "They are obviously concerned," Lopez said about her county's school systems.
No one has aggregated the total number of counties reassessing home values, and many counties take at least a year to catch up to the marketplace. In some places where reassessments are rising, the numbers have yet to approach historical heights.
For example, in 2007 roughly 1,800 homeowners asked for reassessments in Los Angeles county, far above the average of about 500, yet far below the tens of thousands of homeowners in Los Angeles who looked for tax adjustments during some years of the downturn in the 1990s. But elected officials and property tax experts said that the numbers were notable and that they expected them to grow in 2008.
"You should see more of this activity," said Chris Hoene, director of policy and research at the National League of Cities. "It is mostly in areas most likely to be seeing some decline, like Southern California, Florida, and big cities in the Midwest," rapid growth areas that are now seeing the other side of the curve.
