Property values up $500M
Property appraiser’s preliminary figures show major increase in commercial values
Wakulla County Property Appraiser Ed Brimner
By WILLIAM SNOWDEN Editor
Wakulla County Property Appraiser Ed Brimner said this week that preliminary figures compiled by his office show a $500 million increase in property values over the past year.
Numbers released June 1 to the school board for taxable values up from $2.05 billion last year to $2.54 billion this year.
The taxable value for Wakulla County government increased from $1.76 billion last year to $2.21 billion this year.
(Different formulas are used to calculate the taxable values for the school board and county government. Basically, the school board gets the full taxable value.)
Brimner said the increase was due to three factors: new homes, the increased value of existing homes, but especially to an increase in the value of commercial properties.
Some of that, Brimner said, was due to the property appraiser’s office not keeping up with higher priced sales of commercial property.
He noted one example of a gas station in Wakulla Station that sold recently for $1.6 million but its taxable value was still on the books at its 2016 assessed value of some $300,000.
