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Point property assessments skyrocket

By Meg Olson

As jaws were dropping when Point Roberts property owners opened their 2006 property tax assessments from the county and many saw their assessed values double or more, county assessor Keith Wilnauer was quick to reassure taxpayers that didn’t mean their property taxes were doubling in 2007.

“It doesn’t work that way,” Wilnauer said.

The amount of property tax dollars collected by state and local agencies can only go up one percent per year, unless voters approve a greater increase. “If you want to know how your property taxes really increase it’s by one percent allowed or by voter approval,” Wilnauer said.

What the new valuations do is spread that tax burden differently – with the higher priced properties in the county paying a larger share. “The only windfall is felt by another taxpayer who is feeling some support,” he said.

Following a four-year cycle the county assessor’s office adjusts the value for properties in one of the four quadrants of Whatcom County to reflect changes in the market or property improvements. Last done in the northwest section of the county in 2002, the 2006 valuation changes will be used to calculate property taxes for the next four years.

During this valuation cycle the total assessed value for Point Roberts went from $264 million to just over half a billion dollars, and only $13 million dollars of that increase came from new construction. That translates to an 84 percent increase in local property values. The last time Point Robert’s properties were revalued in 2002, the total assessed value for the Point dropped by one percent.

“We are catching a market that made its major move in 2003-2005, and it takes us this long to catch up,” Wilnauer said. When Bellingham properties were revalued two years ago the increase was approximately 70 percent. “We didn’t get a 90 percent increase but we missed one more year of strong market evidence and the moves in more affordable areas are not as dramatic as in established ones.”

In addition, Wilnauer said, the real estate market in Point Roberts marches to its own drummer. “Typically Point Roberts shows a real estate market that’s abstract,” he said. “It’s affected by influence nobody else is really subject to,” including currency exchange rates, border policy and attitudes, and now water availability. “In the past we have been seeing slow appreciation in the rest of Whatcom County and depreciation in Point Roberts. Not in this case.”

Next year it will be the turn of the eastern part of the county, and Wilnauer said he expects to see a similar strong increase in property valuations, increasing the overall assessed valuation in the county and spreading a little more of the tax burden in that direction.