Homeowners may have to pay more in property taxes in Wake County as revaluations notices go out

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- Homeowners in Wake County may soon have to pay more in property taxes.

County commissioners said they expect property values to increase when 2024 revaluations are sent out. Those are expected out sometime soon, possibly as early as this week.

Ashton Flores has lived in his new home for nearly two years. He assumes he'll end up paying more in taxes whenever he receives the updated revaluation in the mail.

"We're waiting to see those come through. (We're a) little nervous, but we'll see how all that goes," said Flores.

He took advantage of the City of Raleigh's East College Park affordable housing project and the program helped to kick-start development all around.

Small bungalows now butt up next big, modern builds.

There's a large townhouse community that just went up and lots of the units are already sold.

Wake County said home values have significantly shot up since the last time revaluations were done in 2020. That's because of increased demand and limited supply.

Values have increased for 53 percent of residential properties and 45 percent of commercial spaces.

"This is a big value increase. My personal home increased over 65 percent," said Wake tax Administer Marcus Kinrade.

He is expecting a good amount of people to appeal the new assessments, but it's a gamble for residents.

"Just because someone appeals - doesn't mean we can't increase their value too," said Kinrade.

The County reports in 2020, there were 17,500 requests for an informal review and approximately 6,500 submitted formal property tax appeals.

Of the appeals, Kinrade said roughly 60 percent resulted in an assessment decrease, but then 40 percent saw a hike.

ABC11 asked about folks living in neighborhoods that are developing.

Wake County said staff is making sure those homes, which are being called "legacy properties," aren't overly assessed.

More than 177,000 reviews were done in the field.

"We went out and teams of two appraisers and talked to as many of those people as we could to understand what the condition of their home is," said Kinrade.

The Wake County Board of Commissioners are expected to lower the tax rate in the upcoming budget. So even though the assessment may go up significantly, the amount you owe may not jump quite as much.