The Observation Deck

County Auditor Frank Russo may refuse to conduct the tri-annual appraisal of real estate:

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He will not conduct the required re-appraisal because of fears that the appraisal will result in lower property taxes. The resultant lower values will mean lower tax receipts for local communites and schools.

It is unclear what the legal basis is for this decision.

I have a couple of questons: If a county auditor refused to re-appraise property because it would result in higher taxes what would be the response? Suppose a county auditor simply refused to reappraise property because the auditor was opposed to tax increases?

Hey Bill, I saw that news this morning. I’m not surprised. And I’m sure you’re not either.

Bill as you know I used to post the Lakewood home price statistics from the Northern Ohio Regional MLS. With some adjustments to make them more meaningful. But I stopped doing it (posting that is) because the most recent nine months of numbers are a train wreck and I didn’t want to be treated like “the messengerâ€

Tim Liston wrote:But I have been keeping the numbers, waiting until summer of 2009.to post them again for all to see and use. Wanna see ‘em?

I always appreciated your posts on housing statistics because they provided a dose of reality. I would be interested in seeing the updated numbers.

Below are the updated Lakewood home sale numbers. The first dollar column below is the actual average sale price for that quarter. The next column is the actual number of homes sold in that quarter. The second dollar column is “smoothedâ€