The Jersey City Real Estate market has done exceptionally well over the past 5 years. New construction is booming and gentrification is poised to fill the ever growing inventory of housing supply from new development with equally booming demand in housing stock from young professionals.
Governor Chris Christie recently ordered a full tax revaluation performed on the entire city, with official guidelines from the City of Jersey City as bellows:
http://www.cityofjerseycity.com/Reval/
The words, “The purpose of a revaluation is to fairly distribute the necessary tax burden among all property owners based upon the true value of their property” are intentionally ambiguous and vague in meaning because what the city does not want you to know is that in the vast majority of cases, the annual property taxes on your property WILL GO UP.
That’s right, it is an almost certain probability that as a result of an appraiser knocking on your door and walking through your property, your home will actually decrease in value when all’s said and done simply due to the fact that whoever owns your house will be paying more in property taxes each year to the government.
A beautiful 3 family property like this is considered "undervalued" due to the fact that in the tax records, it is only showing a value of $100,000 when it clearly sold for well over $400,000 on the MLS a couple months ago.
What does this mean for you, the homeowner, in the long run? That depends entirely on what your overall goals are. If you intend to own Real Estate in Jersey City for the next 5-10 years, we would say that overall, the tax revaluation will only serve as a minor hiccup and should not have a significant impact on your decision to keep or sell your property.
If however, you have been on the fence about selling for a while and believe that you will be missing out on appreciation due to the fact that the market keeps climbing up every year, now would be the time for someone who is aware of the potential risks of Real Estate markets to keep a close watch and sell if any good offers come along.
There is much room for uncertainty as we close out the 2017 calendar year and head into 2018. Prices have not been this high since 2007... and we all know what happened then...
Written by Brandon Lor