Even Philly politicians are challenging their property values as city gets more than 30,000 appeals

The long list of Philadelphia property owners appealing their assessments this year includes working-class homeowners, out-of-town landlords, and big-name banks.

Even a few politicians are worried about their own soaring tax bills in 2023.

At least three current lawmakers — including two City Council members — filed appeals on their personal homes or rental properties. The appeals list also includes a perennial appellant, “condo king” Allan Domb, who resigned from Council in August to run for mayor but still manages a vast real estate portfolio.

Philadelphia pols have attempted to lower their tax bills in the past, with varying degrees of success. And city officials have a say in the city’s budget and tax rate. Councilmembers Kenyatta Johnson and David Oh, who are appealing their assessments this year, along with Domb, took part in budget negotiations to increase the relief programs in order to offset the impact of the reassessment.

To be clear: Elected officials have the same right as any other property owner to appeal their assessments.

The three-year gap between the most recent revaluations and the city’s booming real estate market led to sharp spikes in tax bills this year, and the sticker shock has caused a flood of appeals unseen since the city’s controversial reassessment in 2014.

» READ MORE: Thousands of Philly homeowners are challenging their property values. Lower-value homes are underrepresented.

Occupying differently valued homes in vastly divergent neighborhoods, the appeals of three politicians — Johnson, Oh, and State Rep. Mary Isaacson (D., Phila) — highlight some of the issues raised by the first citywide reassessment in three years, as well as the city’s overall evaluation methodology.

Here’s why they say they’re appealing.

Johnson was not happy to learn that the city thought his Point Breeze rowhome and nearby rental property are now valued at a combined $1.2 million, more than double their prior assessments since 2020.

The assessed value of the Democrat’s personal home nearly doubled, from $446,500 to $871,800. And his argument echoes a common claim in appeal cases: It doesn’t match similar properties on his block.

“I felt that the market value of my home was one of the highest on my block of similar three-story properties, however the OPA’s assessment was more than $300,000 higher than those similar properties,” Johnson said in a statement.

To build a successful case before the Board of Revision of Taxes, or BRT, property owners must identify comparable properties to argue that their assessment is an inaccurate outlier.

Records show some properties with similar characteristics on Johnson’s block were assessed at a similar range, while others were not. The council member submitted an unsuccessful (FLR) appeal in 2019.

This time, Johnson secured a victory. In mid-December, nearly three months after filing his appeal, OPA offered him a lower assessment on his home, and he withdrew his formal BRT case. (OPA offers some appellants similar resolutions before their hearings; Johnson’s office did not immediately provide the new value when asked Tuesday.)

His appeal for his rental property, which landed him under ethical scrutiny last year after he failed to disclose income, remains ongoing, he said.

Both of Johnson’s properties reflect a larger trend: Owners of higher-priced homes are more likely to appeal, even though they are valued more accurately than lower-valued homes. Although 55% of residential properties in Philadelphia were assessed at under $200,000, those properties make up only 36% of the property appeals submitted to the city, an Inquirer analysis found.

The annual salary for City Council members starts at more than $136,000, more than double the median household income in Philadelphia.

Oh, a Republican, said he can afford the tax hike resulting from the assessment increase at his home in Southwest Philadelphia, which rose 82% from $154,600 to $281,600. But he said he appealed on principle.

“I live in a very rough neighborhood,” Oh said, who was stabbed in front of his home in 2017, “and people are not paying that kind of money to live there … I can afford to pay the taxes, but my neighbors can not and should not.”

The homes on Oh’s block had previously been valued between $98,000 and $150,000. Under the new assessments, they range from $213,000 to $281,000.

Owners of the lower-valued homes in Oh’s section of Southwest Philadelphia were less likely to file appeals than the residents of Johnson’s rapidly gentrifying Point Breeze neighborhood.

Oh’s next tax bill will go down if he wins his appeal. However, that won’t directly benefit other properties on his block unless their owners also appealed. (The deadline has passed for this year.)

But if he wins, the council member argued, his neighbors “can use that as a basis to lower [their] assessment” next time.

Isaacson, a Democrat, has watched her Northern Liberties neighborhood grow from a gritty outpost north of Center City to one of the most affluent neighborhoods in town. She now represents one of the wealthiest real estate tax bases in the city, a district stretching from Fishtown to Society Hill to Queen Village.

But as a resident, Isaacson said she fears being squeezed by rising taxes on her lawmaker’s base salary of around $95,000. This year, the two-story brick rowhouse she and her husband purchased nearly 20 years ago has been reassessed at $556,200 — up 36% from $407,600 in 2022.

The spike doesn’t account for the condition and age of her home, she argued, which is now ensconced by newly built luxury townhomes.

Isaacson said she has long been a critic of the city’s assessment methodology, and records show she has appealed successfully at least twice since 2014.

Isaacson is enrolled in the homestead exemption, which now knocks $80,000 off the taxable value of any homeowner’s primary residence. Accounting for that relief, the city estimates her tax bill this year will be around $6,666, up from $5,076 the previous year.

Spikes like that can shock the bank accounts for some homeowners, she said.

“It’s quite the burden you put on people when they have these fluctuations,” she said.