Final property rolls released this week show the dip was 9.5 percent countywide, not 9.2 percent.
And hard-hit cities like Homestead were delivered even more of a wallop: rather than an 18 percent drop reported in a preliminary analysis last month, fully 25 percent of the city's property value was wiped off the books amid the economic free-fall.
Across Miami-Dade, the downturn erased $23 billion in real-estate value, pushing the county's overall value down to $222 billion, according to the property tax roll assessment released by county Property Appraiser Pedro J. Garcia.
Broward faces a similar story, with the property tax roll falling about 10.6 percent countywide, Property Appraiser Lori Parrish announced this week. That was virtually the same as the earlier preliminary estimate.
The steep decline in property values -- which local governments, schools, libraries and government authorities assess a tax on for funding -- portends a difficult summer of budget-writing in both counties.
Government administrators and elected leaders must decide what to cut while determining if some programs and services are important enough to warrant a property-tax increase. And it comes at a time when taxpayers, struggling through the recession, are in little mood to pay more taxes to public entities that ballooned during the boom.
Miami-Dade County's operating budget, for instance, increased 32 percent in the past five years amid the real-estate bonanza.
''Government is going on a diet and it is way overdue,'' said Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett, who opposes raising property taxes despite a 16 percent drop in value in his city. ``We are going to do what all taxpayers are doing in Dade County, that is we will balance the budget with the revenue we have.''
Tax notices with proposed tax rates go out in August. Local governments typically approve new fiscal year budgets in September. Then final tax bills go out after that.
Many Broward cities fared worse than the county average, including Parkland, with the biggest drop: 17 percent.
For Broward County government, the loss in property values translates to a shortfall of about $100 million. In June, commissioners rejected a proposal by County Administrator Bertha Henry to raise the tax rate to recoup some of those lost tax dollars, which means commissioners will have to agree to steeper service cuts in September.
Foreclosures and short sales (in which a lender allows a home to be sold for less than is owed on a mortgage) are a primary culprit for the overall meltdown.
The decline is based on home sales in 2008 and is more than double the size of the drop the previous year. Parrish included foreclosures and short sales if they were listed on MLS; Miami-Dade included short sales but not foreclosures.
In Miami-Dade, the drop is estimated to have created a $350-$400 million budget hole. In a speech to the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, County Manager George Burgess said that in his 27 years of working in government, he has ``never seen a more difficult budget than now.''
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez has hinted that he will propose a tax-rate increase, saying in an interview last month that ``it's almost impossible that we can achieve an acceptable budget with cuts alone.''
Yet, several county commissioners are pledging to oppose tax hikes.
Reflecting the budget difficulties, Alvarez decided to wait to issue a proposed budget until the tax roll was published this week; the proposed budget often comes out sooner.
Interesting post though I think that the financial crisis that we are experiencing right now is due to something that cannot be explained if we look deeper.
Posted by: Real Estate System | 09/19/2009 at 12:56 AM
Commercial real estate is in trouble now and it will get worse before it gets better. There is little money out there that is not government backed. Commercial mortgages are seeing the same problems as residential jumbos are and maybe worse.
Posted by: John Beck Property Vault | 09/11/2009 at 02:42 AM