Local Assessor Position Daily Life

[RichMahagony]

Does anyone here work for their local Assessor's office doing commercial work as a full-time employee? There is an opening where I live and was considering applying and, if called, interviewing. Just wanted to see what a day in the life was for someone like that before I hit "send."

 

[Vernon Martin]

I've worked at a couple of assessor's offices over the years. The most important requirement was to be at one's cubicle by 8 am.
You think that you will be valued because of your decades of field experience, but might instead be treated as a trainee, facing snipes by jealous "lifers" who feel like private sector appraisers don't know anything. Inspections have been replaced by Google Earth and Pictometry, so look forward to a lot of time spent in a cubicle.

I apologize for the cynicism.

 

[RichMahagony]

I appreciate the honesty.

 

[Artemis Fowl]

I do commercial and residential valuations for a couple communities. My experience is probly not the norm tho as I work for a contract assessing company. No politics, no pressure, no silly meetings/classes and merit matters. Most residential inspections are now pictometry based but I did spend my first few years walking every street for inspections. We still do that for issues that cannot be resolved via GIS/pictometry. Good phone etiquette is a must as you will be answering questions from taxpayers who are not always happy and generally have little understanding how property tax works. Not sure how your state is setup but here we do yearly mass appraisal. The cost approach is fundamental to this. I do a lot of statistical analyses, market analyses and excel stuff. I've sorta niched into also developing excel apps that simplify many of the tasks we do...even teaching a class on it this year. Currently building up GIS skills.

The biggest adjustment for me was breaking from the singular property mindset to a more neighborhood or commercial occupancy class based approach. Meaning, I'm not so much looking at a retail property's value but all retail properties and trying to establish statistically relevant values to that class. We don't expect to get perfect on a single property but we should be pretty close on all similar properties.

Land valuation underlies most everything (duh). Those skills will be very useful. Most of your appraisal skills will translate very well. Assessment administration will be a whole new thing to learn and master.

You may be required to appear in court/tax tribunal to defend your work...not as scary as it sounds. Most of the big ticket disputes will be handled by the attorneys and contracted appraisals. Likely would be doing valuations and defending for smaller/simpler commercial properties. You will produce appraisal reports for these. IMO the best judges will tear up both sides and come to a conclusion...great learning experience if you possess the ability to take criticism.

You will witness issues that will likely never come up in private practice. Some will frustrate and some will fascinate but, to me, always be interesting.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Correct me if I am wrong, but in Arkansas I think they still practice a 'personal' inspection by the assessor's office for new construction and then they might give a more cursory inspection every third year (which every property gets an update) and they do use digital aerial photography which is shared with the state highway department annually to do some sort of digital way to detect differences for any new construction added. I know it didn't take them any time to find my shed but when the lean-to was blown away off my barn, and I simply closed it in, it was about 3 years before it was updated.

 

[Vernon Martin]

Yes, I remember one time when they sent me out to measure new construction on a gas station. As for new decks, trellises, etc., we identified them through Pictometry and personal correspondence with the property owner..

 

[Gobears81]

new construction on a gas station

I've seen several different interpretations about what constitutes real property vs FFE on a gas station for ad valorem. How do you handle fuel dispensers, canopies, and USTs in CA?

 

[RichMahagony]

I do commercial and residential valuations for a couple communities. My experience is probly not the norm tho as I work for a contract assessing company. No politics, no pressure, no silly meetings/classes and merit matters. Most residential inspections are now pictometry based but I did spend my first few years walking every street for inspections. We still do that for issues that cannot be resolved via GIS/pictometry. Good phone etiquette is a must as you will be answering questions from taxpayers who are not always happy and generally have little understanding how property tax works. Not sure how your state is setup but here we do yearly mass appraisal. The cost approach is fundamental to this. I do a lot of statistical analyses, market analyses and excel stuff. I've sorta niched into also developing excel apps that simplify many of the tasks we do...even teaching a class on it this year. Currently building up GIS skills.

The biggest adjustment for me was breaking from the singular property mindset to a more neighborhood or commercial occupancy class based approach. Meaning, I'm not so much looking at a retail property's value but all retail properties and trying to establish statistically relevant values to that class. We don't expect to get perfect on a single property but we should be pretty close on all similar properties.

Land valuation underlies most everything (duh). Those skills will be very useful. Most of your appraisal skills will translate very well. Assessment administration will be a whole new thing to learn and master.

You may be required to appear in court/tax tribunal to defend your work...not as scary as it sounds. Most of the big ticket disputes will be handled by the attorneys and contracted appraisals. Likely would be doing valuations and defending for smaller/simpler commercial properties. You will produce appraisal reports for these. IMO the best judges will tear up both sides and come to a conclusion...great learning experience if you possess the ability to take criticism.

You will witness issues that will likely never come up in private practice. Some will frustrate and some will fascinate but, to me, always be interesting.

Very insightful, thanks so much for that.

 

[JTip]

Take a HARD look at the pay (not much you can do about that) and the benefits. There is no question you can do the job duties, but are the benefits worth your valuable time. It may take a decade for the job to come to fruition, where the salary meets potential promotion(s). First few years will suck, as Mr. Martin truthfully tells, look at the long game to see where you want to be.

If you don't see the finish, then keep looking. There are many opportunities out there.

 

[Tiffany Gibbons]

I've worked at a couple of assessor's offices over the years. The most important requirement was to be at one's cubicle by 8 am.
You think that you will be valued because of your decades of field experience, but might instead be treated as a trainee, facing snipes by jealous "lifers" who feel like private sector appraisers don't know anything. Inspections have been replaced by Google Earth and Pictometry, so look forward to a lot of time spent in a cubicle.

I apologize for the cynicism.

This was exactly my experience at a large jurisdiction. IT took me years to work up from the lower appraiser position in Residential even with a CG. When I finally got a promotion, it was only after I earned every Assessor "designation" they wanted.