Pittsburgh shooting: Five dead and three injured in 'ambush' at Wilkinsburg backyard party

[happyslug]

33. I have travled through Wilkinsburg, the downtown is DEAD

Even Earl Scheub moved out decades ago (the old store still exists, but in the last 10 year someone finally painted over the old Scheib sign).

http://www.earlscheibautopainting.com/

My father delivered mail in the Hill Distinct of Pittsburgh in the 1980s, and notice some nice homes and blocks within the Hill District and NEVER had a problem with anyone on the hill, but he stayed away from Wylie Avenue after sunset. The same with most areas that are considered "Bad", the bad tends to be around certain areas which most people learn to stay away from.

As to Assessment value vs Market value, they are SUPPOSE TO BE THE SAME. Assessment value is what a willing buyer will pay from a willing seller. People have complained about assessments for years, but the only real problem has been low end properties. It costs about $2000 to close on a house today. On a $200,000 home that is less then 1% of the total cost to buy the home. The problem is when you are looking at homes valued less then $20,000, that $2000 in closing cost exceeds 10% of the value of the home. Thus any mortgage on real estate of less then $20,000 is rarely done for the bank does NOT want to eat the closing costs if the house is foreclosed on. On real estate in excess of $20,000, the closing costs are less then 10% and most payments will be able to cover that costs within the first year of the mortgage (and pay most of the interest).

You can buy a home with less then 1% down payment, but the Bank wants the closing costs to be paid up front. Thus if someone fails to make payment on the load, the bank can re-take the house and sell it and not lose money. For that reason most low end housing is hard to sell, the banks will give someone a personal loan to pay for such housing but not a mortgage.

As to higher end housing, i.e. more then $20,000, that real estate tends to be very accurate and is the main reason you hear business complain about real estate taxes. The best locations for Business, sell for the highest value and thus has the highest assessment. Business complain about this all the time but know that if they use they real estate taxes to point out the high taxes, no one would will care, thus they bring out the widow on a fixed income complaining about having to pay taxes on their home, even as in this case the annual taxes are $28.74.

Please note Wilkinsburg is like some other communities, they use a modified "Georgian" assessment system, The value of the land is accessed at 100% but any "improvements" such as an actual house is assessed at only 10% of true value.

On the web page the house value is $24,200, land value is $2000, house value is $20,200. Thus you add the Land Value of $2000 to 10% of the true value, (10% of 20,200 is $2,020, but for some reason it is listed as $2,200, for a total of $6,200 value for tax purposes). I suspect no one challenged the amount for the taxes are quite low.

My point is valuation of a home is the basis of its assessment value, just because the county want to assess homes at 10% of their value and businesses at a higher rate does NOT mean these two things are different from each other.