Home values in Harford County's central Route 40 corridor and the Level and Abingdon areas fell slightly during the latest round of property reassessments released last week.
Commercial property values, however, continued steadily upward, reflecting the construction boom around Aberdeen Proving Ground and, in particular, the thriving Perryman peninsula industrial area.
In preparation for the next budget, the county government is monitoring all revenue, including the projected impact from the latest round of reassessments, spokesperson Cindy Mumby said Tuesday.
Residential properties dropped by 1.2 percent since the last time they were reassessed three years ago, according to the state's Department of Assessments and Taxation.
Commercial properties jumped by 14.7 percent in the same time period, the largest increase of any jurisdiction in the Baltimore area.
The state reassesses properties on a triennial cycle, with one-third of the county reviewed each year.
This year, the assessment area included almost the entire Route 40 and I-95 corridors except for the City of Havre de Grace. Included in the reassessment were the City of Aberdeen, Edgewood, Perryman and Riverside.
Other areas reassessed included the Level area north of Havre de Grace, Abingdon and part of the Bel Air South area.
"It's a working-class area, so it's not like Fallston where it commands high values," Nancy Schmidbauer, assessments supervisor for Harford County, said Monday of the latest round of residential reassessments.
"These areas actually are pretty stable," she said, noting the change in value is "very minimal compared to the commercial aspect of it, which is huge in this area."
Perryman has seen an industrial boom from warehouses that featured the Sephora cosmetics giant's new facility that opened earlier this year and the existing RiteAid complex. More distribution centers are planned and in the county review process. Exelon Generation, already the county's largest taxpayer, is building a $120 million addition to its electricity generating station in Perryman, and a subsidiary of the power giant has announced plans to build a solar generating farm nearby.
Aberdeen's Ripken Stadium area picked up three apartment complexes since the area's last reassessment, Schmidbauer noted, including the higher-end Yards at Fieldside Village complex right next to the stadium.
Apartment complexes are classified by the state as commercial developments.
"We have got hotels going up in the Perryman area," Schmidbauer added. "There's a lot of new construction going on for commercial properties in this area, and I believe that apartments, their vacancies are still low because people are still transitioning from that foreclosure scenario [into apartments]."
The Route 40 area is "where most of the apartments are located," she added.
Residential high points
Home values in some Bel Air South and Abingdon developments, including Glenangus, Willow Chase and parts of Monmouth Meadows, continued to stay high, Schmidbauer said, noting she believes there were "a couple of million-dollar sales in there."
"They don't seem to hurt very much when it comes to showing a decrease," she said. "Those pockets still went up."
In Constant Friendship, townhouse values tended to drop while single-family homes increased in value, she said.
Overall, "Constant Friendship is about unchanged," Schmidbauer said.
Aberdeen neighborhoods like Windemere, Woodland Green and Bar Kess Heights also rose in value, on average, she said.
Meanwhile, the average home values in Paradise Manor, south of Route 22 closer to Beards Hill Road, and the Edgewood area dropped, although Edgewood is difficult to measure because of a high number of foreclosures, Schmidbauer said.
Harford residential value growth was much lower than the statewide reassessment average this year of 8.1 percent, according to the Department of Assessments and Taxation. Commercial properties, meanwhile, showed an average increase statewide of 18.6 percent.
The state measured about $7 billion worth of residential properties and $3 billion worth of commercial properties in Harford in this assessment round.
"We are steady in Harford County. It doesn't seem like it really drops off," Schmidbauer said.
Impact mixed
"We are aware that residential is flat and commercial is up significantly," Mumby, the county government spokesperson, said. "Of course, the county is monitoring revenue very closely, and this information comports with our projections for a slight increase in property tax revenue next year."
She, however added a note of caution.
"Given the size of the overall county budget and all the other variables, such as income tax which can fluctuate, and that only one-third of the properties are reassessed, it's not enough to move the revenue needle significantly," she said.
Mumby said the county would continue to monitor the overall revenue situation as it prepares the 2015-16 budget that will be released in mid-April.