Luzerne County’s assessed values still holding up

Fifteen years after the last reassessment, Luzerne County’s assessed values are still holding up, according to an annual snapshot reading.

The last countywide reassessment took effect in 2009 and had been the first mass revaluation since 1965.

Around this time every year, the State Tax Equalization Board releases a statistic called a “common level ratio” based on a comparison of prior-year real estate purchase prices to the assessed values in each county.

An ideal ratio is 100, which means purchase prices closely mirror assessments.

Ratios below that score indicate more real estate purchases are above assessments — a sign of underassessment. The opposite — overassessment — is true as scores surpass 100.

Due to high real estate purchase prices, the county’s ratio dropped to 76 two years ago and plunged to 69.4 last year.

However, county Chief Assessor/Assessment Director Kristin Montgomery had predicted more purchase prices would start coming down and landing closer to assessed values. As a result, Montgomery expected the county common level ratio to start rising again and move back toward the ideal 100.

That’s what’s happened, according to the new county ratio supplied by the state this week: 86.8.

“The ratio is what it is based on sales versus assessments. The market has changed, as I knew it would,” Montgomery said in a written reply Friday.

Among all 67 counties, only two others currently have better ratios than Luzerne: Philadelphia, with 93.3, and Indiana, at 90.8.

While many of Luzerne County’s current assessed values have remained unchanged since the reassessment, thousands have been adjusted, usually lower, through assessment challenges.

Monitoring is necessary to determine if another countywide reassessment is warranted, and the county administration has emphasized there are no plans to proceed with a mass revaluation at this time.