Marbleheaders are seeing a wide variance of property values and assessments that has caused some homeowners’ taxes to increase more substantially than others, with some of those residents beginning to question the accuracy of the town’s assessments.
Despite a tax-rate decrease from $10 in fiscal year 2023 to $8.96 in FY24, some homeowners have seen tax increases of as much as 40%, seemingly out of nowhere, even with Proposition 2 ½, which aims to keep taxes from rising significantly by placing a levy limit on how much communities can increase the levy each year.
The levy ceiling is calculated by taking 2.5% of the total cash value of taxable personal property within a community, and it is changed by taking the previous year’s levy, plus 2.5%, and adding new growth in town.
Town Administrator Thatcher Kezer said that the new growth does not apply to every homeowner.
“New growth doesn’t affect everybody, that’s not a tax increase except for those who actually produce the new growth revenue,” Kezer said.
Kezer added that additions to a property that cause a “significant increase to the value of your home” are a factor in the town’s growth.
“The higher tax bill goes to that property owner and the additional revenue gets added on top of our levy right away,” he said.
Kezer said another factor is the change in property values. Marblehead is currently in a hot housing market, causing some values, and the average value of homes in town, to skyrocket. Kezer said that the town’s average increase was 16%.
“That’s a huge jump,” he said. “If everybody’s properties increased equally, the effect of the tax increase on everybody would be the same, the only difference would be that the tax rate would decrease.”
However, that hasn’t been the case due to certain house types being more responsible for the hotter market than others.
“What’s happening that’s creating consternation is different peoples’ homes are increasing at different rates. Some people are seeing huge increases in the value of their property, and therefore their tax bill went up to reflect that,” Kezer said. “And other people are seeing probably an increase, but not nearly as much as the average.”