What's the deal with owing more than the home's assessed value?

vedahanks

Is there something that can be done about that? Like with regard to taxes or something? I'm talking an almost $25k difference.

DISCLAIMER: I'm completely clueless and have really no idea what I'm talking about but I thought I heard something about this.

 

laurenpetro

usually what happened is someone bought a house with a 100% mortgage and then the value dropped.  even we were technically underwater because ours dropped more than our downpayment. 

there's not much you can do about increasing the value.  we brought ours up by putting on an addition.

BeachBaby07

we also disputed the homes assessed value for tax purposes. we were fine with our mortage because we bought in 2001,  but when we all got our taxes re-assesed the market was really really high. Pretty much everyone in our town filed a tax claim and got our taxes dropped by quite a large chunk

AmyRob04

Taxes don't have anything to do with your home's market value. If you believe you are being taxed unfairly you can have a tax reassessment done by your town, but that doesn't make your home worth more on the market.

 

And the short answer to your question, no, there is really not a heck of a lot you can do about your home's market value. It's a boat many of us are in, unfortunately. You can refi in some circumstances, but that jus lowers your payment, doesn't make the one worth any more than it is. 

mrs.marie.g

AmyRob04:

Taxes don't have anything to do with your home's market value. If you believe you are being taxed unfairly you can have a tax reassessment done by your town, but that doesn't make your home worth more on the market.

 

And the short answer to your question, no, there is really not a heck of a lot you can do about your home's market value. It's a boat many of us are in, unfortunately. You can refi in some circumstances, but that jus lowers your payment, doesn't make the one worth any more than it is. 

pretty much this. there is not much you can do. sucks

 

vedahanks

Ok. Thanks guys. It's sad because we did SO much work to the house - we didn't even live in it the first year because of this! When we talked to a realtor about maybe selling it 2 years ago, he wanted to put the starting price at $30k less than we paid for it! Guess we'll never have a home that can house more than one kid.

AmyRob04

laurenpetro:

usually what happened is someone bought a house with a 100% mortgage and then the value dropped.  even we were technically underwater because ours dropped more than our downpayment. 

there's not much you can do about increasing the value.  we brought ours up by putting on an addition.

I wouldn't say "usually" - pretty much every homeowner I know - like KNOW know, not Nest know, where nothing is as it seems - who bought in the last 8 years put 20% down and is still underwater. We did 80/10/10 when we closed, paid off the 10 in about 2 years, and still don't know if we can afford to sell since we'll have to bring so much to the table. We found our home in September or October 2005, closed in December 2005 - so the market was still jot but juuuust starting to soften.