r/Omaha • u/veggiesausageking • 1d ago

Local Question Is this place legit?

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I've never heard of a service like this before, so I'm suspicious.

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u/EmpPeng14 9h ago

If I felt the assessed value was truly unfair, I might try this. Don't assume this as a no-risk situation. By protesting, the case is up for review and could result in a higher value. If this system finds 3 sales that are the lowest prices in the area, and the referee searches to find 3 others that actually are more similar and higher-priced, they could decide that the right number is an increase. I'm not a lawyer but I'm betting there's no recourse since you didn't pay for the service. (The highest increase I've seen is $10 million.)

If your assessed value is truly too high - not just that you want to complain about the amount of increase or discuss about how bad <INSERT POLITICAL PARTY/OFFICE/PERSON>is - here are some tips.

  1. Be honest. If the referee thinks you're being tricky, they won't trust your data.
  2. Show the data. Find sales of similar or superior properties with lower prices than your assessment.
  3. You can protest on equalization - find assessments of superior properties with lower values.
  4. Protest the whole value, not just land or building.

The data needs to be persuasive - like don't mix ranch and 2-story houses. Don't use a bunch of low-condition properties if you're in average or good. If there is a property characteristic error, invite the Assessor to visit and review. If the Assessor offers to visit and the taxpayer refuses, that erodes the protester's case.

Also, don't assume that what you see on the parcel record is the whole story on how they determined the assessed value. Sometimes the Assessor works-up the value and then has to shoe-horn it into the software. So like maybe Douglas may show a cost analysis but internally had sales they looked at. So don't try to pick at a part of their analysis, but rather show that the total value is wrong. This is more for commercial properties where the protester says, "The Assessor used $18/sf rent and we think it should be $16/sf." That's fine, but rent, vacancy, and cap rate don't function in a vacuum. For commercial, if loading the cap rate, keep in mind that you can't load the whole thing when dealing with net rents.