ALLEGHENY COUNTY, Pa. — The words “property reassessment” are a phrase homeowners across the country have long dreaded. Now, there’s no avoiding it in Allegheny County.
After decades of kicking the can down the road, a judge ordered the county to reassess its 580,000 properties by 2032, which will mark the first time some properties have been revalued in 20 years.
Supporters say property values have gotten out of whack, with similar homes paying dramatically different amounts in taxes. They also accuse wealthier households and corporate landlords of using the older values to dodge taxes, leaving lower-income households to shoulder more of the burden.
Just because property values have gone up doesn’t mean a house will pay more. Pennsylvania law’s windfall provision prevents the county from using an assessment to collect more taxes.
Instead, Michael Suley, who oversaw the last two assessments, equated it to re-slicing an existing pie.
“A third of the property owners in Allegheny County, 200,000 properties, will definitely see a tax increase,” Suley explained. “One third of the property owners, 200,000 roughly, will see their taxes go down.”
He said increases were more likely to occur in neighborhoods where values have exploded, like Lawrenceville, while disadvantaged neighborhoods like Wilkinsburg may see tax cuts amounting to hundreds of dollars per year.
Wealthier areas may have more increases because the last assessment took place in the wake of the Great Recession, when larger homes’ values were pushed down by the financial crisis.
Suley said there is no true way to predict what will happen to an individual property today, simply because the value of each home will be set by the sales around it between 2028 and 2031.
However, homeowners can get a hint about what would happen if an assessment were conducted right now by using the county’s property record search.
If the assessed value of a home is 50% of the home’s market value, Suley said the home’s taxes will likely stay about the same.
The lower the assessed value compared to the market value, the greater the chance the home is undervalued and will see a tax increase. He pointed to a home in Bloomfield that recently sold for $300,000 but was assessed at $90,000 and said its taxes would probably go up.
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