Residential Real Estate Newsroom

2007 Fairfax County Real Estate Assessment Change Notices Mailed

The Fairfax County Department of Tax Administration (DTA) begins mailing 349,351 real estate assessment notices to County taxpayers today. The notices will be sent to all property owners of taxable parcels in the County. Of the 349,351 taxable parcels in the County, 267,555 had some value change. The remaining taxable parcels have no change in their 2007 real estate assessment. The assessed value of properties may change for a variety of reasons. Among these are appreciation and value declines (i.e., equalization changes); and, structural changes (additions, remodeling), rezonings, and land divisions (i.e., growth). A combination of these factors can apply to the same property. The majority of residential properties experienced a decrease or no change in value.

The overall equalization change for residential properties is -0.33%. The decline in the number of residential properties that have an assessment change for 2007 reflects the stabilization of prices compared to the double digit increases over the past six years. Commercial properties show an overall equalization increase of 13.57%. This is primarily the net result of value increases in elevator office values of 15.9% and apartments of 22.59%. The percentage of the real estate assessment base attributable to commercial and industrial property in FY 2008increased to 19.23% (in addition, multi-family rental apartments contribute another 3.5% of the County’s real estate tax base).

Overall, of the 267,555 properties that have a 2007 assessment change, 14,112 are due to growth (i.e., new construction, rezoning, etc.) and 253,370 properties changed solely due to equalization. Another 73 properties have had some adjustment between land and building values without changing the total property value. Based on equalization changes, the mean assessed value (i.e., on average, County-wide) of most single family-detached homes for 2007 is $635,566, down - 0.43%. This group of properties makes up 71.2% of the residential equalization property value in the County. Additionally, based on equalization changes, townhouse/duplex properties have a 2007 County-wide assessment average of $405,471, a increase over 2006 of approximately 0.64%; and, the mean assessed value for condominiums is down - 2.23% to $291,167.