Real-Estate Roulette

The Inquirer analyzed the BRT's reports from 2006 (the latest year available) and found serious discrepancies and gaps. For instance, that May the board reported an average sales price of $48,759 on 863 sales. Four months later, the average price jumped to $209,238 on 968 sales.

No such inconsistencies were evident in the data sent to the state by the suburban counties, whose reported sales prices varied little from month to month.

After The Inquirer pointed out apparent irregularities in the city reports to him, Gregory J. Schoffler, the state tax board's executive director, said he would meet with BRT officials next month to discuss the numbers.

Said Schoffler, "We need to sit down with them very shortly."

Confusion reigns

The confusion that afflicts the system works to Philadelphia's advantage.

Consider that aggrieved property owners bear the burden of proving that their assessments are out of line with comparably valued real estate. At any given price level, however, Philadelphia's assessments are as similar as ants and elephants.

For example: On the 250 properties that sold for $125,000 last year, the assessments ranged from $3,808 to $32,256 - in other words, from 3 percent to 26 percent of market value.

Without an accurate "common level ratio" - a percentage that is identifiable and fixed citywide - property owners have no firm data with which to argue their appeals.

The Board of Revision of Taxes hears and decides all appeals. It is the same agency responsible for hiring the assessors.

Taxpayers who do not like the board's decision can appeal to Common Pleas Court, whose judges appoint the board members.

In the 2008 appeal period, the BRT rejected 5,000 appeals - or 85 percent - and granted reductions in 879 other cases. Homeowners who filed appeals said their hearings had only added to their confusion and frustration.

Mark J. Ratkus, an economics professor at La Salle University, owns a home in the 5200 block of Westford Road in Olney, where property values have stagnated in the last two years. In August, appraisers raised his assessment.

When he examined the other assessments on his street, he could find "no linkage" between them and actual market values, he said.

Irked, Ratkus appealed - and lost.

He said BRT members had told him that he should consider himself lucky, that even though prices in his neighborhood had been falling, he had escaped tax increases during the previous four years when homes appreciated.

Their rationale, Ratkus said, "didn't make any sense."

Ianthe B. Lane lives in the 1200 block of East Johnson Street in East Germantown, another street where the numbers appear to defy logic. Almost all the houses on the block where her two-story stone home sits carry an assessment of $26,336, including one with crumbling front steps. The annual tax bill comes to $2,176.

Houses nearby have values that are comparable, if not higher. But the assessments range from $16,064 to $19,744, with tax bills that are $300 to $600 lower than on Lane's block.

Like Ratkus' house, Lane's was part of the August sweep. Evaluators pegged its worth at $215,000, which she thought was much too high. The BRT rejected her appeal, without any stated reason.