Manassas Park Property Values Appreciate, Foreclosures Decrease

Manassas Park’s real estate tax base next year is expected to increase by 3.5 percent from the current total of $1,101,342,900, which is good news financially for the city.

 There are various ways that the city’s property tax base can change, but property appreciation appears to be the primary reason that assessments will change for 2012, Richard Sanderson, the city’s assessor said this week.

 Sanderson outlined his forecast of real estate tax assessments for city council at Tuesday’s meeting.

The forecast is based on data collected through September of this year, Sanderson said.

He will have more information about the real estate market through Dec. 31 at a governing body meeting in February.

 Sanderson told council that additions and renovations to existing residential properties are expected to generate $2.2 million for the city's tax base for Fiscal Year 2013.

These types of improvements added between $1.4 million and $2.8 million to the tax base from Fiscal Year 2009 through 2010, he said.

 There were 59 foreclosures in the first nine months of this year— a 37 percent decline in comparison to the same period in 2010, and a far cry from the 330 foreclosures in the city during the first nine months of 2008.

 The number of foreclosures that took place in the second and third quarters of this year are more than what were reported in the final two quarters of last year, but analysts expect the overall foreclosure numbers for 2011 will be less than 2010, Sanderson said.

 When preparing the forecast, Sanderson said he was met with the challenge of shadow inventory. Real estate experts say some banks haven’t yet placed foreclosed homes on the market that they took back up to nine months ago.

If too much inventory is placed on the market at one time, prices will suffer. Many large banks and mortgage lenders are supposedly awaiting the outcome of lawsuits concerning foreclosure practices that were filed by state attorneys general before proceeding with foreclosure claims.

 Bank-owned property sales in Manassas Park declined 33 percent, to 35 in the first nine months of this year.

 Of the 177 homes that sold through September, about 51 percent sold at prices above their 2011 assessed values.

Most of the homes sold in Manassas Park were homes in the $150,000 to $199,000 price range, according to data from the assessors office.