Lake County’s tax roll is recording another substantial boost this year from new construction reports the Lake County Property Appraiser, Carey Baker. New home and business construction are adding over $692 million in taxable value to the 2018 tax roll. This represents a 7.8% increase over the prior year new construction of $641 million. “We added 3,347new residential homes to the roll this year; up from 3,074 last year,” said Baker.
The Property Appraiser’s 2018 Best Estimate of Taxable Value for the Lake County General Fund is $20.5 billion; up 9.25% from last year. The Lake County School Board is up 8.76%. “This is the highest yearly increase since the tax roll peaked in the real estate market run-up at $22.4 billion in 2007,” Baker said. The Best Estimate includes all real property (residential, commercial, agricultural and vacant land); all Tangible Personal Property (business equipment); and all Centrally Assessed railroad property.
All cities throughout the county are up in value with the South Lake region of Minneola, Groveland, and Mascotte outpacing most other areas. However, for the 3rd year, the City of Fruitland Park tops the list of all cities with 31.85% growth in its taxable value thanks to another 719 homes in the Villages of Fruitland Park being added to the tax roll.
Sales of residential properties are the other driving factor of tax roll growth. The 2018 tax roll values are mostly reflective of property sales that occurred in 2017. “We processed 23,290 deeds in 2017 of which 12,426 were single-family residential sales. The number of residences being homesteaded by the owners grew 3.58% to 87,570 homes; a new record high and 12.75% greater than in 2012 when the figured bottomed at 77,748 following the crash of the real estate market” stated Baker.
Individual property assessments and exemptions can be viewed on the Property Appraiser’s website at www.lcpafl.org.
