Rental Property Investor · Cleveland, OH · Member since 2019 · 5 posts · 1 vote
Currently
looking to purchase another house hack. An
example for a duplex I was looking at in Cleveland Heights recently:
List price: $330,000
Assessed value: $157,000
If
the assessed value was to automatically become the purchase price after
sale, the tax bill would double making the deal not work.
Does
anyone know if the county does this automatically upon purchase, during
every 3 year assessment cycle, or something different (ie: raises the
assessed value, but somewhere in between current assessed value and
purchase price)?
Be careful!! Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights notoriously bad for property taxes. That’s why I sold there and bought in Lake County. Plus, they are landlord friendly in Lake County too. I have 105 units in Painesville and 57 units in Mentor. I had 8 units in Shaker Heights and 10 units in Cleveland Heights that I sold in late 2017. I just sold 12 units in Euclid. The property taxes were pretty high there too and they were getting more tenant friendly there too. Especially Cleveland Heights and Euclid, I don’t see the hype. Nothing special in those areas in my opinion.
The county changes values every 3 years. At 3 years they do a desk assessment and every other (so every 6 years) they do drive by appraisals. When they appraise they are supposed to be looking a comparable sales but they do not seem to look at the actual sales by specific property. So it is unlikely that they will re-assess to the purchase price but it is almost 100% that taxes are going up, maybe significantly. And, of course, when you purchased for more it makes a tax appeal almost impossible.