City mails 90,000 property tax assessments ANCHORAGE: Average value of a single-family home rises 1.5 percent.

Anchorage's 2011 city property tax assessments went out Friday.

The city mailed 90,000 green cards to individual property taxpayers. People can also look up the new assessed values of their home -- and anyone else's -- online at muni.org.

The average value of a single-family house in Anchorage rose to $316,600 from $312,000 the year before, a 1.5 percent increase, said city assessor Marty McGee.

In 2010, the value of an average single-family house dropped a percentage point from 2009.

Overall this year, city property values are flat, McGee said. "What we have here is a pretty stable tax base."

Residential property assessed values, excluding condos and four-plexes, went up 1 percentage point, he said.

The sales prices of houses backed that up, he said. "The market is telling us the value is holding," he said.

Commercial property values stayed the same, McGee said. There were few sales of commercial buildings during the past year; what few there were showed sales values about the same as the year before, he said.

New construction of commercial buildings is down 51 percent over last year, Mayor Dan Sullivan said in a news release.

The property values mailed out and posted on the city website Friday will be used to figure tax bills, which will be sent by May 15. Between now and then, the Assembly may make final adjustments to this year's budget and tax rates.

At an Anchorage Assembly work session Friday, the assessor put the city's taxation level in perspective.

He said a homeowner who earns $100,000 a year and owns the average $316,600 home might pay $4,840 in property tax in Anchorage, or 4.8 percent of his income.

Nationally, a homeowner earning $100,000 pays an average of $8,757 in state and local taxes, including income, property, sales and auto taxes, he said. In Anchorage, there are no sales or income taxes.

On the other hand, Anchorage had the 11th highest rate of property taxes among the largest cities in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to a D.C. study, McGee said.

Taxpayers who think there's an error on their assessments can get a review by the city's property appraisal staff. If there's still disagreement, taxpayers have until mid-February to file formal appeals.

Appeals must be accompanied by a filing deposit that will be refunded to taxpayers who follow through on the process.

Find Rosemary Shinohara online at adn.com/contact/rshinohara or call her at 257-4340.

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