By Matt de Simone
Last week’s meeting of the Botetourt County Board of Supervisors featured a presentation from Wampler-Eanes Appraisal Group Vice President Gary Eanes explaining the process of the recent countywide reassessmen.
According to Eanes’s presentation, in 2019, the average sale price for all county properties was $259,872. Following the reassessment, current values in Botetourt, based on 313 sales in 2023, is $386,862 – a 33% increase in property values across the county.
Eanes explained via a Zoom call that the company provides services to localities that do not have a staff or resources to conduct a general reassessment. He noted that Botetourt requires a reassessment once every four years, while some surrounding localities provide reassessments annually.
The recent reassessment is “the first step in a comprehensive sales study,” according to Eanes’s presentation. Eanes mentioned that Botetourt properties were visited by a field inspector who verified data and collected additional info. The field reviews were performed with the homeowners, if they were at home.
Eanes’s presentation explained that throughout the reassessment process, neighborhood sales, land values, yearly appreciation trends, and other data are analyzed. The firm enters the data into a mass appraisal system and is accurately validated.
He talked about Virginia’s sales ratio study clarifying that the study compares assessed values to market values as represented by open market sales.
“In other words, if we (Wampler-Eanes) assess a property at $80,000, and it sells for $100,000, then we are at 80% of market value,” Eanes said. “When the reassessment process is complete, property owners will be notified and we will hold hearings. At that point in time, the property owner will have time to appeal the reassessment. Sometimes, they appeal it for us to raise it. They feel the reassessment is low. Typically, they’re looking at the value of increase there.”
The presentation went on the clarify that property owners who continue to disagree with the reassessment results can appeal to a Board of Equalization appointed by the Circuit Court per recommendation made by Botetourt County.
Eanes went through several reassessments made by the firm showing examples of reassessments of county properties.
Following the presentation, Board Chair Steve Clinton clarified that the board selected Wampler-Eanes to perform the reassessment, and that the board was not responsible for the process.
“You can see how things have increased,” Clinton said. “It’s remarkable. Of course, there’s some good to that. It increases all of our net worths. It also has an effect, of course, on taxes. That won’t be known until after the Board of Supervisors sets the tax rate, which we haven’t even begun to talk about yet. We will be doing that during the latter part of March.”
Board members asked Eanes questions based on feedback from constituents. Buchanan Supervisor Amy White asked Eanes about the “drastic variability in increases” of property values and the comparisons between property values in different districts.
“Each market area is looked at and the sales within those neighborhoods,” Eanes answered. “No two houses are ever alike… There were several sales that were indicating that (properties) more than doubled in value. The state comes in at the end of these reassessments and looks at all these sales. If I’m still (valuing) 50% on one, then they are going to question why.”
Eanes went on to explain there are various property projects like remodeling, additions, and repairs that play into a property increase. White noted to Eanes that the increases were “a lot at one time” and asked if there was a legal way to limit the increases at one time. Eanes said that, according a state code, there isn’t a way to “cap” the property increases.
White added that there were properties that significantly increased neighboring properties considered neglected or rundown and asked Eanes how that figured into the reassessment process. Eanes said that due to the “strong” market in Botetourt, those properties White mentioned would still increase in value despite the state of neighboring properties. He noted that, in some cases, surrounding properties do take away from their neighbors’ values. Eanes said they are currently receiving photos and appraisals from residents to help their respective cases.
Valley District Supervisor Mac Scothorn asked Eanes about how residents can go about the appeal if property owners feel that their property won’t sell for the appraisal price. Eanes said they send property owners the sales the firm uses that includes a price per square foot and that, at the time of the meeting, the amount of appeals they received was “low.”
Scothorn noted that, due to the amount of people who attended the meeting to comment on the matter, “Well, looking at the showing today, that will increase.” Eanes said he expected so.
Eanes said that the high increases in property values is “nationwide.” He said other localities are talking about doing more frequent reassessments “just to keep the sticker shock down.”
Fincastle Supervisor Brandon Nicely asked Eanes about the increase of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) over the last four years and if that played into the increase of all properties. Eanes said that supply and demand have a lot to do with it.
Eanes gave Nicely an example. “You may have 10 buyers for every piece of property sold. People got into bidding wars. It’s like anything. Remember when the pandemic started, we were afraid we were going to run out of supplies and there was panic-buying. I don’t know if this is ‘panic-buying,’ but we noticed these rising prices back in 2018.”
He noted that the reassessment was based on a house-by-house basis. When Clinton asked him about the variations being “unusual,” Eanes said that sometimes property values are reduced by the Board of Equalization, but were then brought up to market value, which would cause for a variation.
Several citizens voiced their opposition to their new reassessments following the presentation.
Visit www.botetourtva.gov/859/Reassessment for more information. The video presented by Wampler-Eanes Appraisal Group that dives into the Botetourt County Reassessment process can be found at this link: https://youtu.be/qieF2RLI6I8?si=V8yGWescx6ytsX7k.
To watch Wampler-Eanes presentation during the February 27 meeting, visit www.youtube.com/@botetourtcountyva. The presentation begins at the 18:57 mark.