The situation in Flint only gets worse: not surprisingly, residents are now worried about their property values, which have already fallen significantly over the past decade. The inability of many residents to sell their homes will only get worse as the reputation of the city’s water supply plummets. This means not only an ongoing crisis of lack of mobility for the city’s residents, who might want to move to better work opportunities, but a looming crisis for city’s already decimated property tax base. Residents will certainly request reassessments of their property values, which are tied to the true cash value of the home.
“Given what’s going on there, I’d have to imagine there’s a plummeting in the fair market value,” said Nathan Resnick, a Bloomfield Hills lawyer who specializes in tax appeals and real estate law. “There’s going to be disparity” between what assessors say the properties are worth and what buyers are willing to pay.
Morse said lenders are already skittish about lending in Flint and are asking appraisers to find comparable homes that have sold very recently rather than, say, eight months ago.”Eight months ago was a completely different market than what’s going on now,” Morse said.
Source: Water woes could sink Flint’s property values even more
Al Jazeera has also covered the story:
https://twitter.com/ajam/status/718246152693374976