Realtors are Homeowners Too (and share the same challenges as everybody else)

Hurrah!

I received a letter from the County Board of Review recently, giving me the results of my property assessment appeal.

Along with 17 other owners in my townhome community, I traveled to the heart of the County's administrative building in Chicago's Loop last month to make a case for a reduction in my property assessment. The assessment that was delivered to all of us late last year reflected an unrealistic fair market value of our homes. It was rather absurd, really, overstating our value by some 28%.

One of our neighbors took the lead in organizing our mass appeal to the County, and spent many hours of his own time to investigate, interview, argue, and otherwise open the door for all 36 of us to plea our case to the people at the County seat who have the power to change an assessed value of a property. Thank you, Tom!

So today was the big day for me; I pulled an envelope from the mailbox on the front porch, labeled as coming from the County Board of Review. I couldn't wait to pull out that letter, announcing my property tax fate; relief! A 19.25% reduction in assessed value!

Life is good today. Now if only we could do something about the weather around these parts ...