Every June, Spokane County Assessor Tom Konis sends letters to property owners that let them know how much their home and land are worth. That, in turn, determines how much you pay in property taxes that year.
Konis's assessors spend a good chunk of the year gathering information to help them decide how much individual home and businessowners will owe. Konis joins us to talk about how they value your property.
This interview is lightly edited for length and clarity.
DN: What are the factors your assessors look at when determining how to put a cash value to properties?
Tom Konis: Number one, we start with sales, of course, within given neighborhoods, geographic type neighborhoods. Depending on how your neighborhood is, if there are enough sales, we will just use sales from inside your neighborhood. There are some neighborhoods, of course, that don't have sufficient amount of sales. We like about a 4% or 5% sales sample at minimum. So sometimes we do have to go outside the normal boundaries of a neighborhood, especially more in the rural stuff.
DN: So the assessment is essentially what the market price is.
TK: Correct. We would take those sales and establish, okay, this is what it's sold for per square foot for this style of house. And that's what we try to compare your house to a similar style of house, both age, shape, size. We don't have a two-story being compared to a rancher or a split entry being compared to a four-level. We have a number of different house classes that we keep track of. And so, yeah, then we will take that factor and apply it to all of the properties.
DN: Those of us who watch HGTV hear the term “curb appeal.” How much does yard and the way the outside of a house looks like? Because you can't go inside. How do you determine if you've got a rundown house versus a very well-kept house on the same block?
TK: Unfortunately, you're right. We don't have enough people to get inside houses. And, number two, people aren't home a lot now during the day. We have about 220,000 parcels that we are responsible for. They're real property parcels, of which we have to physically inspect one-sixth of those every year. So it's a pretty daunting task for 16 appraisers. So the curb appeal does make a big difference to us because all we're getting is a view from the street.
DN: So your assessors might go out and park in front of a house with a checklist. What's on the checklist then?
TK: We're looking for a new roof, any additions, things to that effect, and just general maintenance. We just make the assumption if you're maintaining the outside, you're also maintaining the inside. We do have aerial imaging that we have flown countywide every other year, similar to Google. And we are looking now at a street imaging program that will also be able to do that and give us a little more up-to-date numbers than what we can do just with our appraisers out on the street.
DN: So you look at the roof. Is there a standard amount that you add on? It looks like a new roof. Here's $2,000 we add on to that.
TK: We would update the age typically a year or two because it's going to make it now last longer because it's protected. Same thing with new windows and things to that effect. Those things help protect the inside.
I will tell people that when you do get your notice from us — and you're going to get one in the first week of June — you're going to get another envelope from me. If you disagree with the value that's on there, the first thing to do is call the appraiser. Their number, their name, everything is right on the notice. Give them a call. Again, because we aren't inside properties, if there's something inside that we don't know about, please help us out. We're only as good as the data we have.
DN: So then they take the appraisal in and they put it in their computer? Is there some sort of market correction sort of thing or is it just sort of an automatic, okay, here are the additions, here's what I think the assessment needs to be increased by?
TK: Yes. We do market adjustments, neighborhood adjustments because, of course, different parts of even Spokane County move at different rates. So yeah, there are a number of adjustments that are factored in.
DN: So different neighborhoods might increase at different varying rates?
TK: Right. Increase or decrease.
DN: They've gone up an awful lot lately over the last several years.
TK: I don't disagree. It was, in my opinion, an ugly market for Spokane. Just moved too fast. I've been doing this for 33 years now. Historically, we move at 1% to 3% and it's just a nice gradual climb and it worked out well for everybody. During COVID, especially right in that time where there was so much pent-up demand, and we had a lot of people moving from out of the area, that drove up our prices and the demand. It was just a hard market for a lot of people, hard for a homeowner because then there was that increase in property taxes that comes about because now your value, instead of being at $300,000, is at $500,000. Even though your taxes aren't directly tied to the increase, it still increases your tax burden.
But it was hard on everybody. It's hard on the builders. It's hard. Everybody has been struggling. So I'm glad that we're getting back to more of a normal Spokane market.
DN: When are your folks out? Because you said you're going to get a postcard from us in June. So to your assessors, are they out there doing their work all year long, and they just kind of get them in when they can?
TK: No. We start in September, physically inspecting. We were done this year just a little bit after the end of January and now they are doing the statistical updating in the office. And going back, if there's a question on a property, okay, why did this one not move or why did it sell for what it sold for? Can we go back? They'll go back and look at those.
DN: You talked about if people dispute their assessment. Is there an appeals process or do you just prefer to work with them one-on-one or do they have then future appeals options?
TK: There are definitely appeal options. First off, start with the appraiser. If you don't get a satisfactory answer, there is what's called the Board of Equalization, which is a separate board that is appointed by the county commissioners. It's totally separate from my office. It is basically a quasi-judicial board where once you have filed your appeal and they set your appeal date, you will be able to turn in evidence supporting what you think the value should be. My appraisers would turn in evidence to what they think the value is or to support the value they have. Then the board would decide what the answer would be. If you're still not happy with the local board's decision, there's also a state board of tax appeals you can appeal to. So there are a number of different things, and none of this costs any money, just some time.
DN: How often does this happen?
TK: We do about 800 appeals a year. The nice thing about it is we settle about 70% of those every year before they go to a hearing even. So the appraisers really do listen to what people are saying and no one knows their house as well as the person living there. But it's also, especially when we were having that appreciating market, it would surprise people that truly that's how much it went up.
DN: So, clearly, you believe in this system of assessment. Make the case for folks why you think this is a good system.
TK: Our challenge in our office is to make sure that everybody's being treated fairly and that they're paying their fair share of this tax burden that we all have, no more, but no less either. This is a way we can do that with our current system.
