Comments on: What a Weekend (random notes)

By: Please

Please — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:18:26 +0000

Well, not “sold for too much,” but “on sale for too much/have a sale price that’s too high.”

By: Please

Please — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 01:48:07 +0000

raspootin: My point was, What else are assessors supposed to go on? Your word? The worth of a house in an unflooded or lightly flooded area from two to even five years ago? Someone obviously must be successfully selling homes for $225 a square foot, or else there wouldn’t be so many on the market at that price. There can’t be that many greedy people in Uptown (or other pricey areas such as Bayou St. John). And if so many people are that greedy, they deserve the higher taxes until enough of their neighbors or former neighbors bitch at them about raising the neighborhood’s assessments. Reality will set in soon enough, if the homes are being sold for too much.

By: termite.

termite. — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 23:40:39 +0000

jack,
you always manage to write posts that get folks thinking and talking.

nice job monkeyboy. ;)

Geaux Saints! ;D

By: Jack Ware

Jack Ware — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:34:11 +0000

So, Ras, have you started gathering info to contest it? Are you even going to try and contest it – which I think you can do in person or by phone starting tomorrow?

**Not directed at Ras from here down**
I was reading the TP article today about this (no link – you all know what I’m referring to I’m sure) and I started wondering:

Do you think it makes a difference in the value of your property that with 80% of the city flooded, that you stayed high and dry? Better yet do you think it should make a difference? It just seems like its mostly the un-flooded house owners that feel they’ve gotten screwed. Unfortunately, the people that live uptown weren’t exactly sympathetic characters pre-K in the eyes of the rest of New Orleans for right or wrong. And uptown sure as hell isn’t a sympathetic character now. Think about what someone in N.O. East sees everyone saying about this argument….’Life’s so tough that you’re house value doubled in a few years while my house value went to zero in a few hours. Guess you’ll have to sell it, take your tens of thousands of dollars of profit and go buy something that isn’t in your precious “uptown”.’

I mean, you can see there’s a point in there. Not that anyone would necessarily buy at the assessed value but they wouldn’t have for everyone that’s complaining to make a very tidy profit right? And that sets aside the fact that you may not want to sell. But still, it isn’t hard to see a pretentious slant to what’s going on if you look at it through different eyes.

Maybe that answers my own question of where all the watchdog/advocacy groups are on the subject? Maybe they aren’t interested in what they perceive to be a bunch of whinny, wealthy, white people. It is certainly a possibility.

The mayor hasn’t said shit on the subject but I doubt anyone finds that strange.

By: Raspootin

Raspootin — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:09:13 +0000

Has raspootin checked out real estate listings for Uptown New Orleans?

Yes I have. I still think the prices are over inflated.

Yeah I’m rich!!! All I have to do is find someone to buy my 1 bedroom home for $400K.

By: Please

Please — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:26:22 +0000

Has raspootin checked out real estate listings for Uptown New Orleans? An assessment of $400,000 or so for a house in Uptown is in line with asking prices for decent homes in most decent areas there. The average asking price seems to be about $200-$225 per square foot. Go see for yourself at any website carrying the multiple listings for New Orleans.

By: Ann

Ann — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 03:54:26 +0000

It’s not just NOLA, which I think was Owen’s greater point. There are sections of Memphis where you have $499K zero-lot line McMansions next to circa 1950 3/2 ranches, more often than not occupied by lower income or limited income people. Same thing going on in Nashville and Chattanooga. TN just passed a homestead exemption for senior citizens who fall into the category of “bought 40 years ago, paid it off, retired, on a fixed income, and now can’t afford the property taxes due to gentrification.”

Under assesment is a plaque that is difficult to remedy without the trauma y’all are experiencing. Additionally, LA has the most generous homestead exemption I know of (I could be wrong). There’s a necessary tension between worth, taxable worth, and feasability. I think NOLA is struggling to find that balance.

I feel your pain. (well, sorta. My bedroom suburb was just named a Top 100 Place to Live so we’re now doomed. And we already pay out the wazoo for H2O. Can’t wait to sell – hey a nice 4/2 on a 1/4 acre, fenced, in Bartlett, TN. Relativley cheap. Call me!)

By: Frolic

Frolic — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:06:49 +0000

I agree with you completely Owen.

The current system is corrupt and unjust. Reforming it is a major step in improving New Orleans.

By: jack Ware

jack Ware — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 01:49:48 +0000

I can’t tell if I should be insulted or not, Laureen.

By: Laureen

Laureen — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 01:38:07 +0000

wow, this might be the textbook of why nothing works from the ground on up! LOL, I started out seeing how you should hire a contractor for some more complicated things. Then I realized, it’s really about fucking it up yourself and blaming others ! Democracy ! Great Work, Jack. You could lecture across the nation and probably from your trailer.