Teardown of the Day - WestportNow.com
This blog-like page contains an interesting economic indicator: despite a tepid economic environment for most home construction, the pace of teardowns in Westport, Fairfield County, Connecticut, seems to be steady to rising.
Westport sits on Long Island Sound, and has a reputation for excellent public schools and good express trains to midtown Manhattan. ($308 for a monthly pass -- 44 miles, about 67 minutes; $5 per day for day parking -- 300 spots -- but a 4 to 5 year wait for one of 1800 parking stickers -- $325/year.)
Many of the entries show recent transaction prices, which readers of this site will know are clearly simply for land value.
It would be interesting to know what the bank appraisals on these properties would show, in terms of the value of the houses and the value of the land itself -- assuming that the buyers needed to take out mortgages.
And it would also be interesting to know how Westport's assessor values these properties, and what adjustments take place in neighborhood land values as the evidence of most of the value being in the land accumulates.
Some years ago -- 2003 -- the assessor's worksheet was published. It is still online, at http://www.westportnow.com/Revalmodel022704.pdf.
And it turns out that Westport's assessments are online. So let's look at the newest teardown, posted 10/1/2011:
The assessor's database shows an "appraised" value of $249,800 for the buildings, and $696,400 for the land, or a total of $946,200. (This is the supposed "market value" of the land at the date the valuation was done, October 1, 2010. By Connecticut law, assessed value is 70% of that market value. Peculiar law; one wonders whose interests it was designed to serve.)
The record also shows that the property sold in August 2010 for $1,000,000. The previous transaction was in 1973, which suggests that it might have been an estate situation. But 14% appreciation in 12 months is pretty sweet these days.
So that 1.11 acres sold for $1,136,174 in August, 2011, and then the buyer paid an additional amount for the removal of the 1700 square foot building -- say, $10 psf? That's $17,000, for a total of about $1,150,000. And the assessor says the land is worth $$696,400.
And that $250,000 square foot house? Over valued by quite a bit.
The 2010 tax rate for Westport was $14.85 per $1000 of value. (I couldn't find the 2011 figure, but it was expected to be 15% higher.) That's based on the 70% value, which for this property was $662,400. So the 2010 property tax was $10,300.
$10,300 as a percentage of the transaction price, $1,136,174, is 0.91%.
Clearly the town is well run, and people want to live there. They're willing to pay $1.1 million for a lot. And even in these times, financially difficult for many people, there are people who can afford to pay $1.1 million and more for a bit of land on which to live.
How much of the value of these lots comes from excellent schools and good municipal services, and how much from the existence of Metro North, of I-95 and the Merritt Parkway, the presence of Long Island Sound, and the presence of NYC? And how much comes from the presence of hedge funds and other high-paying employers which are skimming the cream from the productive economy and pocketing that value, because we let them do so?
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