‘The right move’: How Wake County plans to reduce homeowners’ revaluation ‘sticker shock’
Wake County will be the first county in the state to move to a two-year revaluation cycle that officials say will help get new construction on the tax rolls sooner and reduce homeowners’ property-tax “sticker shock.”
Real estate values between 2020 and 2024 soared in Wake County, with residential properties rising an average 53% and commercial proprieties rising an average 45%.
“Getting on a two-year cycle, even in a roaring economy, should decrease that sticker shock,” said Marcus Kinrade, Wake County’s tax administrator.
“We haven’t seen a lot of our partner jurisdictions or municipal partners adopting revenue-neutral tax rates lately, particularly for this past cycle,” he explained. “So, hopefully, putting new construction in the tax base at market value, more frequently, will curb those tax rate increases.”
Revenue-neutral tax rates are designed to generate the same amount of property-tax revenue as before a revaluation. In practice, local governments tend to adopt budgets with new tax rates above revenue neutral.
The Wake County Board of Commissioners voted Monday to move toward a two-year cycle. The next revaluation will be Jan. 1, 2027, followed by another on Jan. 1, 2029.
State law requires a county to undergo a revaluation every eight years. Wake County moved to a four-year cycle in 2016.
“Something we hear quite often is growth doesn’t pay for itself,” Kinrade said. “And we also hear from our long-term property owners — people who have been here 30, 40, 50 years — that they don’t like having to pay for all of this growth. So, in theory, conducting a revaluation more often should take some stress off of older homes.”
The value of older homes is still increasing, he said, but their value is typically less than most new construction.
“Putting this new construction and growth on the books or in the tax base at fair market value more frequently, in theory, should take some of the pressure of our long-term residents,” Kinrade said.
Wake County would be the only North Carolina county on a two-year cycle. But it’s common in other parts of the country.
“They’re almost all on an annual revaluation cycle to try to reduce the sticker shock, to keep the assessed values closer to market value,” Kinrade said. “The only two outliers that we found on the list of top 10 fastest-growing counties, [with] over a million in population, were Wake County and Mecklenburg County.”
Wake County’s geographic neighbors are also seeing significant property value increases, including:
- Durham County: 71%
- Orange County: 49%
- Johnston County: 71%
“I know this is going to be, on some level, difficult for the community to hear,” Wake County Commissioners Chair Susan Evans said. “But I think it’s the right move, at the right time.”
This story was originally published March 17, 2025 at 4:08 PM.
