Tax Assessor: Miami Condo Values Down As Much As 40%

Condominium owners in Greater Downtown Miami can expect to see their assessed real estate values for property tax purposes drop by as much as 40 percent in the upcoming year based on early indications from Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser Pedro J. Garcia.

Garcia's office is currently assessing the value of every property in the county for 2008 property tax purposes, which are in arrears. Once these values are computed on July 1, government officials will then begin the process of levying taxes against every property owner in order to generate revenue to operate the county, school system, and local municipalities.

"Property taxes generally work out to be about 2 percent of the assessed value determined by Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser," said Peter Zalewski, a principal with the Bal Harbour, Fla.-based real estate consultancy Condo Vultures® LLC. "For the property appraiser to suggest that condo values have fallen by as much as 40 percent is great news for our buyers who are already accumulating heavily discounted units. A property tax break should only improve the situation for our buyers."

Garcia told the Miami Herald that property values have plummeted throughout the county, especially in the overbuilt condominium market.

''Some will be down 20, 30, 40 percent,'' Garcia told the Miami Herald. ``I hope it won't hurt police and fire departments, but we'll have to really tighten our belts.''

In Greater Downtown Miami, for instance, developers constructed nearly 23,000 units between 2003 and the present. In the four decades prior between 1961 and 2002, developers constructed about 11,500 units, according to the Condo Vultures® Official Condo Buyers Guide To Miami™.

Peter Zalewski of Condo Vultures® can be reached at 800-750-0517 or by email at peter@condovultures.com Don't forget to sign up for our weekly Market Intelligence Report™ for detailed condo reports. Looking for a property at a deep discount? You are encouraged to take a peek at the Vultures Database™. Our new books, the Official Condo Buyers Guide to Miami™ and Miami's Great Condo Crash: A Chronicle of the Boom and Bust™ are now available. Want to see every foreclosure filed in South Florida since 2007? Check out our Foreclosure Database™.

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