By Mike Barnhardt
Enterprise Record

Expect a new property tax value to arrive in the mail soon.
There were 113 land transactions during the last 11 days of December, requiring an investigation by the tax department to make sure values didn’t change, said tax administrator, Brian S. Myers.
Myers told county commissioners earlier this month that on average, residential properties are worth 4.77 percent less than four years ago.
Appraisers at least drove by every property in the county, which was divided into 63 “appraisal neighborhoods.” Sales in those neighborhoods were used to determine the “fair market value,” he said.
“Properties will not change uniformly throughout the county. Depending on market conditions and recent sales in your neighborhood, your assessed value may increase, decrease or remain the same.”
More than 91 percent of the property in Davie is residential, with 22,023 tracts; 1,229 are commercial, 259 industrial and 646 are exempt.
Commercial property is decreasing 5.31 percent, residential property 4.13 percent.
By municipalities, Bermuda Run will see the largest decrease in values, 9.24 percent, with Cooleemee at 8.16 percent and Mocksville at 6.41 percent.
Residential property valued at $3.2 billion in 2012 will be valued at $2.9 billion in 2013.
Property owners should get a letter stating the new value by the end of the month. Those letters give instructions on how to appeal an assessed value.
To bring in the same amount of revenue with the new tax values, county commissioners would have to raise the tax rate by more than three cents per $100 valuation.
“Anything we can do to soften this on the taxpayer, we need to work on it,” Commissioner Mark Jones said …