Harnett County Taxpayers Cry For Help

By Emily Weaver
Daily Record of Dunn

HARNETT COUNTY, N.C. – The values of many homes in Harnett County have skyrocketed this year after the latest countywide reappraisal. And owners of mobile and manufactured homes are seeing some of the largest increases.

“… Over the years, my 31-year-old mobile home has steadily decreased in value. Last year, it was valued at $2,500. This year, it’s valued at $37,000. That’s an increase of 1,480%, almost 15-fold,” Jerry Rivas told Harnett County commissioners at a meeting March 30. 

Gary Patterson told commissioners a similar situation happened to their mobile home. Their 1984 doublewide in Erwin went from having a value of $65,446 in the last reappraisal four years ago to having a value of $138,025.

“I went to the bank and asked them what could I borrow money on? They will not lend no money on that house at all. So it has no lending value, but y’all got it taxed at $138,000,” Patterson said. “If y’all think it’s so valuable, I’d be more than glad to sell it to you for $100,000 and then y’all can move it all and I can buy me another house…”

This year’s reappraisal looked closely at manufactured homes.

“The last known schedule of values for a manufactured home was completed in 1998 and since that time there have been significant market changes in the value of these types of homes,” Harnett County Tax Administrator Christine Wallace told county commissioners at a meeting in February. “Using data collected from sales of new and used mobile homes, we were able to ascertain a schedule of values to reduce the disparities among this property type …”

This revaluation is ‘concerning’

Marge Moreton, who lives in the Fuquay-Varina part of Harnett County, told commissioners that some of those values might not be fair.

“I collected feedback yesterday from over 80 households across Harnett County on social media. Many reported increases of $100,000 or more. Some property doubled in value, maybe some even tripled. What stands out the most is that mobile and manufactured homes are seeing most of the highest increases, even though these homes typically depreciate over time,” she said.

“Many of these residents have no improvement to their homes, have lived there 20, 30 and even 40 years and are seniors on Social Security, disabled veterans or family already struggling with rising costs of living. There’s also a clear pattern where properties near new developments appear to be impacted the most.

“Residents feel they are being compared to homes that are not comparable to their own. At the same time, residents who have recently purchased new homes in these developments are unlikely to see the same level of increase, if any at all, which means the burden is shifting onto people who have lived here the longest,” Moreton told the commissioners. “We’re also seeing a lot of these homes being purchased by investment companies through LLCs, sometimes owned out of state or internationally, and I know personally of one in China, and managed locally as rentals.

“These are not owner-occupied homes, yet they are influencing values for people who actually live here. And for those that rent, these increases will not stop at the property owner. They will be passed down,” she added.

“Even if the tax rate is lowered, the residents who experience the largest increases between 2022 and 2026 assessments will still feel the greatest impact. The gap between those assessments is simply too large to offset. I do recognize that the county already has some tax relief programs in place. However, many people fall outside of those thresholds that do not qualify, even though they’re still struggling to absorb increases of this size.

“So while this may be an evaluation issue on paper, the real-world impact is very human,” she said. “It affects stability, housing, security and whether people can remain in the communities they have built their lives in. …”

Remember last time

The county’s last reappraisal was conducted in 2022. Residents complained of new values being high then, too.

In an effort to ease the burden on their taxpayers, county commissioners lowered the county’s property tax rate that year, but they were a penny off in their calculations for the schools’ low-wealth funding status.

That one penny in the tax rate threw the county into a $5.7 million hole through a loss of low-wealth funding from the federal government. One penny in the tax generates about $1.9 million, so the county traded $5.7 million for $1.9 million after the last reappraisal, leaning on its taxpayers to make up the difference. State legislators said they didn’t know of any way to help them make up those funds at a recent legislative luncheon.

“I’m here to ask you to carefully weigh your decision regarding any mill levy (property tax rate) reduction even though you are hearing them asking you for it,” Rebecca Brock told county commissioners near the end of an hour-long public comment period at the March 30 meeting.

“Please take time if you are going to consider a mill levy reduction on the taxes to understand what negative effects that could have. Because remember, not you Mr. (Eddie) Jaggers, but the three of you (Commissioners Barbara McKoy, Matt Nicol and Bill Morris), when you lowered it in 2022 it caused our county to lose its low-wealth status with the North Carolina Board of Education and the General Assembly and I believe it had an effect on our tax bond rating,” she said. “And that tax bond rating is what allows us to borrow money cheaply for those schools that we need to build. … About two years ago we were given a county report by Ms. Marge Moreton that basically said for every residential tax dollar counties collect it costs about a buck and a quarter to deliver the services … . That’s a 25 cent deficit. So if you’re adding more people, you’re basically not covering your costs. Lowering the mill levy to remain net neutral just means we’re adding residents without covering the costs of servicing them.”