What a Revaluation Means for Your Property Taxes

If you’ve just gotten a notice that your property is being revalued, or you’ve heard one is coming, it’s natural to feel a little uneasy. I live right here in Hector, and when our revaluation was announced, the meeting meant to explain it left a lot of people with more questions than answers.

Let me clear a few things up, because you still have time before the new values take effect, and understanding what’s happening makes the whole process far less stressful.

A reval doesn’t automatically raise taxes. The biggest misconception is worth stating plainly. A revaluation does not automatically raise your property taxes by the same percentage as your new assessment. All it does is update assessed values so they better reflect current market conditions. You might get a notice that your value climbed 30%, say from 70 to 100, and that still does not mean your tax bill is going up 30%. Your taxes depend on more than your assessment alone, and I’ll explain why in a minute.

Check your property card for errors. Before anything else, pull your tax data and read it closely. You can call your local assessor, set an appointment, or look it up online. Verify your square footage, your lot size, the number of bedrooms and baths, your garage, whether you have a finished basement, and features like a deck or a shed.

Every one of those items carries a value on your assessment, so an error there can cost you. I pull tax records all the time when I meet with people who want to sell, and I find mistakes often. One homeowner had been assessed for two kitchens for years, when they only ever had one. Those are exactly the errors you want caught before the reval, and fixing them is easy to do.

Understand your equalization rate. Most homeowners have never heard of the equalization rate, so let’s start there. Your equalization rate is New York State’s measure of how close your town’s assessed values sit to actual market value. When a town’s rate falls under 80%, the state starts pushing assessors to bring all of that property, what they call the inventory, back in line. Many communities go years without updating. Hector, for example, was last updated in 2022 and now sits at about 73%, which tells you how far undervalued the township has become. That gap is a big part of why a reval is happening now.

Compare your home to similar properties. Once your own record is accurate, look at how you stack up against homes like yours. Review recent sales of homes similar to yours, and if you live on a block of similar houses, pull the tax records for the whole block. If your homes share the same square footage and the same improvements, you should be assessed about the same. If you’re not, that’s worth a closer look.

How your tax rate is set. Your tax bill comes down to two things: your assessed value and the tax levy, which is how much the municipalities need to raise. When every property in a town goes up in value, the tax rate itself often comes down. The assessor doesn’t set your taxes. They hand the townships the total inventory value, and the townships divide that against their budgets to set the mill rate.

There’s also a catch. When that notice lands in your mailbox showing a higher value, the new mill rates usually haven’t been set yet, so that piece of paper alone can’t tell you your actual bill. It’s why I always tell people to watch the school, village, town, and county budgets, because those are what really drive the rate.

Why neighboring towns pay different rates. A quick local example shows how this works. The school tax rate in Hector right now is around $10 per thousand, while in the Watkins Glen area it’s closer to $7 per thousand. The difference traces back to the equalization rate. The Watkins Glen area sits at about 97% of market value, while Hector sits at 73%, and that gap changes how the levy gets spread. Your rate is tied to your specific town, not the county as a whole.

Don’t panic, and you can grieve. When that notice comes, please don’t panic. The most important thing you can do right now is get your records and make sure they’re correct, and if they aren’t, visit the assessor and have it fixed. I’ve done it for myself, for family members, and for clients. You simply point out, for instance, that there’s no second kitchen in the house and ask what that feature was adding to your value.

Correcting it protects your value and makes the assessment easier for you and for the assessor. If you believe your assessment is still off after that, you do have the right to grieve it, which is a whole topic I’ll save for another video. If you’re planning to put your home on the market or simply want to know where you stand, start with your property card and your equalization rate.

A revaluation doesn’t need to be a source of panic, and I hope you won’t let it be one. If you have questions or want to talk through what else you should be doing, I’d be glad to help, whether you’re in Hector, Watkins Glen, or another nearby town. Call or text me at 607-351-6933, email me at vickischamel@kw.com, or visit fingerlakesrealestatereports.com, and let’s make sure you’re assessed fairly.