Warwick home owners who haven’t been following the real estate market are likely to be in for sticker shock when they receive notifications of their property values starting this week.

As Tax Assessor Neal Dupuis said Monday, the revaluation is finally here. The last revaluation was as of Dec. 31, 2018, and under state law an updated revaluation was to have been implemented  Dec. 31, 2021. At the request of Mayor Frank Picozzi, and on the basis of the market’s instability, the General Assembly granted an extension.

A shortage of single-family homes, coupled with low interest rates, enabling more buyers to enter the market, sent prices soaring. That also means home property values across the board increased, but it doesn’t mean that taxes will increase proportionally.

“Tax rates (for resident properties) are going to go down substantially,“ said Dupuis. The mayor’s budget along with the projected tax rate is published in today’s Beacon. The projected residential rate drops from $18.73 to $14.76 per $1,000 of valuation.

The commercial rate is another matter. The City Council approved an ordinance on behalf of the administration enabling to increase the commercial rate from 150 percent of the residential rate to 175 percent of the residential rate.  The mayor’s budget calls for a commercial rate of $25.83 or 175 percent of the residential rate. Dupuis explained which state legislators have yet to approve changing the allowable correlation between the two rates, the city can move ahead with it on the premise of its approval so as to finalize the budget.

Because of the red hot real estate market, which has slowed but hasn’t dampened prices, Dupuis expects his office to be bombarded by callers looking for an explanation and questioning if they have been over valued.

“If they truly don’t think they can sell for that (the valuation assigned) , that’s when they should seek a valuation review,” said Dupuis.

In prior revaluations, property owners questioning valuations scheduled appointments to meet with appraisers. 

“There’s going to be a lot of changes,” Dupuis said as a prelude to a new system. The first step is calling the assessor’s office that will direct them to a form that can be either mailed or emailed to city. The form will ask for reasons why the homeowner believes their property was overvalued. That could be the recent sale of a comparative property, an inaccurate listing such as a garage when there isn’t one or a recent appraisal. If that doesn’t result in a satisfactory resolution, there will be in-person reviews conducted in a group setting. Dupuis explained people will be scheduled to come to the public community room at the annex for the review. A schedule had not been prepared as of Monday.

So, how much did residential and commercial properties appreciate over the past four years?

Dupuis said properties are looked at singularly and a collective overall growth in values should not be used as a benchmark He would not release the collective value of residential and commercial properties. Last July in a story about the discontinuance of the automobile tax, Dupuis said the city issued 38,515 real estate property tax bills on property with a total value of $9.9 billion and 3,407 bill on tangible personal property valued at $592.6 million. He was able to generate totals for commercial property at that time.