It's like one of those old "good news, bad news" jokes. Except almost nobody thinks their latest real estate tax assessment is funny.

Over the past few weeks city and county assessors across the state have mailed out those little slips that say your home is worth more -- notices that mean you'd make money selling your home but that will almost certainly translate into higher real estate tax bills.

In the cities and counties around Richmond, assessments are up again, though not by as much as last year or the year before, a Richmond Times-Dispatch analysis of local assessment data shows.

That's because sales prices for metropolitan Richmond-area homes last year rose -- by an average of 5.8 percent -- to $281,139, according to the Virginia Association of Realtors.

In Colonial Heights and King William County, where reassessments were last done two to three years ago, double-digit percentage gains in assessments reflect the much more buoyant market before 2007.

"People are not going to be able to afford paying their property taxes. The assessments are way too high, and the real estate tax rate is not keeping pace," said J.T. Buren, a lifelong Colonial Heights resident who says his assessment rose 31 percent this year.

"I don't think there's a whole lot of fairness in this process," he said. "With all that tax money coming in, you would assume we could set a lower property tax rate."

. . .

There are two things that determine your property tax bill: the assessment, which by state law is supposed to be an impartial appraisal of your property's value; and the tax rate, which is set by the elected members of your city council or county board of supervisors.

It is rare for politicians in the 20 cities and counties around Richmond to cut the tax rate by enough to offset a rise in average assessed value, although Prince George County did last year. This year, though, the fast-growing county is looking for a tax rate increase on top of a healthy 8.3 percent average boost in the assessed value of homes.

That's among the area's biggest one-year gains, although Chesterfield County was the leader, with a 10.9 percent average increase. As with any average, some homes increased by more and others by less.

In Richmond, where homeowners' assessments rose an average 7.3 percent, some areas saw much faster gains, particularly south of the James River, said City Assessor James D. Hester.

Some South Richmond neighborhoods -- mainly those with relatively modest homes worth about $150,000 or less -- will see increases averaging more than 20 percent, Hester said.

That's because homes in that price range were in demand.

Richmond got a big boost from commercial construction: $233.6 million-worth last year.

Construction accounted for most of the total increase in Louisa County's tax base and more than 40 percent of the boost in Prince George.

Unusual for the area in recent years, commercial real estate grew faster in value than residential property in Chesterfield, Henrico and Louisa counties

And, while the real estate market seemed sluggish last year, as worries about subprime mortgages rattled Wall Street and made economists fear an economic slowdown, the price of homes still went up.

"In 2007 even though sales volume has decreased . . . the average sales price has increased," said Jonathan P. Davis, Chesterfield's director of real estate assessments.
Contact David Ress at (804) 649-6051 or dress@timesdispatch.com.

Contact Luz Lazo at (804) 649-6058 or llazo @timesdispatch.com.

Staff writers Wesley P. Hester, Will Jones, Lawrence Latané III, Jamie C. Ruff and Reed Williams contributed to this report.