Pandemic-era home sales in Tisbury have pushed property values up by 35.2 per cent, signaling a lower tax rate for the year to come.
“The overall assessed value for fiscal year 2023 is $4,621,978,338,” said assistant assessor Ann Marie Cywinski, as the town select board opened its annual public hearing on tax rate classifications Wednesday night.
While the white-hot real estate market of 2020 and 2021 may have cooled somewhat, Ms. Cywinski said she doesn’t see values declining significantly next year.
“We really haven’t seen, this year, much of a difference in prices or listings that are going to warrant an adjustment to go down for 2024,” she said.
The median home value is now $988,400 in Tisbury, where more than 90 per cent of all property is classified as residential, treasurer/collector Jon Snyder told the board.
The new valuation isn’t official until the state has certified it, a process that is taking extra time because the jump up from last year’s $3.4 billion assessed value has triggered extra scrutiny, Mr. Snyder said.
“That 35 per cent increase in values is way outside the norm for property in communities in Massachusetts, so the department of revenue has been analyzing in great detail and causing Ann Marie to have to do a great deal of legwork, more than most years,” Mr. Snyder said.
Mr. Snyder said he expected certification as soon as Friday.
The select board continued the public hearing to Dec. 14 at 3:30 p.m., when they are expected to hold two votes on how the new $31,105,441 tax levy will be assessed.
State law allows towns to shift some of the residential tax burden to commercial property, which accounts for so little of Tisbury’s total that the board has voted not to do so for much of the past decade.
The second vote will determine the residential exemption, currently 18 per cent, for Tisbury property owners living in their homes year-round.
Town officials have suggested raising the exemption to 21 or 22 per cent, to help offset the impact of $26 million in additional borrowing for school construction approved at a special town meeting earlier this year.
Out of 2,933 residential properties in Tisbury, Mr. Snyder said, 1,100 are subject to the residential exemption.
Ms. Cywinski said the number of exempt properties grew by 50 in 2022, and that she has recently sent more than 20 additional applications to owners who may be eligible.
In other business Wednesday, the select board reappointed Greg Martino as its representative to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission and approved police chief Christopher Habekost’s request to appoint police administrator Samantha Gitschier as a traffic officer so that she can fill in as needed.
“She’s doing a great job in her present position. This would be above and beyond that,” Chief Habekost said.
