kirkland real estate - march 2012
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i2012022913321582.pdfTRANSCRIPT
March 2, 2012[6] www.kirklandreporter.com
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REAL ESTATE & FINANCIALYour guide to Real Estate and home buying & selling
KIRKLAND
BY MATT PHELPS
Kirkland homeowners have watched the value of what is likely their biggest investment plummet since 2007.
Most received a postcard from the King County As-sessor during the past few weeks with a continuation of that bad news. And while real estate is all about loca-tion, so are property taxes.
� anks to Washington’s revenue-based system, only a portion of property taxes have declined. Some hom-eowners in Kirkland will actually see an increase due
to local levies that can di� er from block-to-block.
King County as a whole will see a rise in property taxes of 1.7 percent. � e majority, but not all, of hom-eowners in Kirkland will see a drop in property taxes this year, according to the King County Assessor.
Most think that their property tax is derived as a percentage of the value of their home, which is true for about half of those property taxes collected. But taxes to pay o� levies can actually rise when home values drop.
“Half of the property tax are from special levies for school, � re, EMS … We are
a revenue-based system,” King County Assessor Lloyd Hara told a group of Win-dermere real estate agents in downtown Kirkland last week.
� at revenue-based system means that if a $50-million levy is passed, then $50 million still has to be collected. � erefore, no matter what valuations do, that $50 million still has to be collected.
Since levies are such a big percentage of the property-tax system in Washington State, the tax rate will not drop in accordance with a home’s value. � at also means that the percentage of taxes, compared to the drop in valuation, can rise.
“If values go down the rates go up,” said Hara.
Washington and Ohio are the only two revenue-based systems in the United States.
But Hara is cautiously optimistic, despite what homeowners are seeing on that postcard.
“We were beginning to see things pick up at the end of last year,” Hara said about the housing market. “We are seeing more houses on
the market and more sales. � ere is a close correlation between jobs and real estate values.”
� ose improvements will not be seen on King County property assessment for another year.
“We run at least 12 months late,” said Hara.
Valuations for 2012 taxes are based on assessments made throughout the 2010-11 year.
For some areas of Kirkland the drop in home valuations was especially tough from 2010 to 2011. � e median assessed value for Kirkland as a whole declined from $425,000 for the 2011 tax roll to $346,000 for the 2012 tax roll. � is resulted in a decrease in the median tax bill of $459.
Kirkland itself is split up into three areas for median valuations. � e biggest drop in Kirkland came in the Bridle Trails neighborhood. � e neighborhood is located in area 68 and is shared with Bellevue. It dropped 7.6 percent from $715,600 to $661,300.
Area 74, which in-cludes the neighborhoods
of Lakeview, Houghton, Everest, Moss Bay, Norkirk, Highlands, Market, South Juanita and parts of Totem Lake, has seen the median home value drop 3.8 percent from $628,700 to $604,900.
South and North Rose Hill and parts of Totem Lake, in area 93, only saw a median home value drop of 2.7 percent from $433,600 to $422,100 from 2010 to 2011. � e annexation area, included in areas 37 and 73, dropped 4.5 percent from $343,900 to $328,500.
� e annexation of Finn
Hill, Juanita and Kingsgate raised the number of single-family homes in the city from 10,557 to 20,170. � e majority of those additions have valuations dramatically lower than those previously located within the city limits. � at inclusion is expected to drop the medium home value in Kirkland by 18 per-cent when assessing based on 2011 valuations, accord-ing to the King County As-sessor’s O� ce. But it is yet to be seen if the annexation will raise the value of annexed single-family homes.
Many Kirkland homeowners to see drop in property taxes
King County Assessor Lloyd Hara speaks to Windermere real estate agents in downtown Kirkland on Feb. 21. CARRIE WOOD, Kirkland Reporter
Some homeowners in Kirkland will see an increase in property taxes due to local levies, says King County Assessor
[7]March 2, 2012www.kirklandreporter.comReal Estate
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March 2, 2012[8] www.kirklandreporter.com
As an investor, what are your goals? You can probably think
of quite a few — but over the course of your lifetime, your objectives typically will fall into five key cat-egories. And once you’re familiar with these areas, you can start thinking of what they’ll mean to you in terms of your financial and investment strategies.
So, let’s take a look at each of these areas and see what they might entail for you:
Preparing for retire-ment — With advances in health care and a greater awareness of healthy living practices, many of us can expect to live two or three decades in an active retire-ment. To pay for all those years, you’ll need to save and invest early and often. So, while you’re working, take full advantage of your 401(k) or other employer-sponsored retirement plan,
as well as contribute to a traditional or Roth IRA. After understanding your desired retirement lifestyle, your financial advisor can help you determine how, and how much, to save to provide for your income in retirement.
Planning for the unex-pected — You can’t see into the future, so you’ll
need to prepare for anything that comes your way. By build-ing an emergency fund containing six
to 12 months’ worth of living expenses, you
can possibly avoid dipping into your long-term invest-ments to pay for things such as a new furnace or a major car repair. And planning for the unex-pected also means having sufficient life insurance to provide for your family in case anything happens to you.
Educating your chil-dren — College is already expensive — and college
expenses have been rising faster than the overall rate of inflation. If you want to help your children, or grandchildren, pay for school, you may want to invest in a college savings vehicle, such as the 529 plan.
You can contribute large amounts to a 529 plan, and earnings have the oppor-tunity to grow tax-free, provided withdrawals are used for higher education. (Withdrawals not used for education are subject to income taxes and a 10 percent penalty.)
Living in retirement — Once you reach retirement, your investment emphasis will shift somewhat, from accumulating resources to making them last. By work-ing with a financial advisor, you can develop a with-drawal strategy that can help make sure you don’t outlive the income you receive from your 401(k), IRA and other sources.
At the same time, given the possible length of your retirement, you can’t ignore the need to invest for growth, so you may need to consider some growth-ori-ented vehicles in your port-folio to help your income keep pace with inflation.
Transferring your wealth — When you’ve worked hard your whole life, you want to be able to leave a legacy — one that allows you to provide financial re-sources to the next genera-tion and to those charitable organizations you may wish to support. So, when it’s time to think about transferring your wealth, you’ll want to consult with your financial and legal advisors to create an estate plan that’s appropriate for your needs. And because these plans can take sig-nificant time to create, you won’t want to wait too long to start.
So, there you have them: five key financial areas on which to focus as you travel through life. By doing your homework, planning ahead and getting the help you need, you can make the journey a pleasant and productive one.
Contact Edward Jones Financial Advisor Sarah R. Taylor in Kirkland at 425-828-9087.
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REAL ESTATE & FINANCEYour guide to Real Estate and home buying & selling
KIRKLAND
Become familiar with these five key areas
What areyour goals?