Hi all, I'm Paige Yowell, a reporter with the Omaha World-Herald. I'm writing again about the number of homes for sale in Sidney, and what impact that might have on the local economy and real estate market. If there are any local real estate professionals who would be willing to talk about the situation, I'd love to hear from you. Also interested in hearing from homeowners who have sold their homes, are trying to sell their homes or those worried about property values. I'm at paige.yowell@owh.com, or my phone number is 402-444-1414. Thanks!
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Unfortunately, those units of government that can levy taxes tend to keep mil levies the same or raise them to keep the revenue flowing. They'll do this until they've maxed out what they can levy according to state law or until someone sues. That's why valuations in this city and county are more important than ever. The boards--elected or otherwise--seem not to have the interests of the taxpayer in mind when they do their budgets. Look at the three bungling county commissioners who gave themselves a raise! Really, how does that work without public input? That's just it, the public doesn't seem to take their responsibilities seriously and question our elected officials. And neither does our local paper anymore. Especially those that can assess a levy. One local school board even had a budget hearing at 5:00 am to avoid public input. It didn't work and they didn't listen to the public either. I see massive recalls happening in 2018.
I am amazed the tone of this discussion, The statements made on this site has basically been if your real estate valuation goes down your taxes will follow. Perhaps more important in this discussion is the actions taken by the local government in regard to addressing a potential short fall in revenue. Has you local government acted as their residents and tighten their budgets? Or have your local government simply acted as business as usual and increased their spending and their employees and started a policy we need to begin to set asign more funds now for our new equipment we need in the future. When home owners are seeing a lifetime of savings destroyed. I see a policy with the local government in the past year not to cut spending . Instead just increase the funds needed for a short fall at the city by increasing the mill levy 25 percent.
On realtor.com it lists 149 homes for sale in Sidney. This does not include surrounding areas or any homes for rent. Crazy.
Zillow lists 89 houses for sale
ZIllow only shows 21 houses sold in town, for 2017. I would say that's wayyyy below normal.
Property is moving in Sidney. Not just at the values they were 3 and 4 years ago nor at the volume of 3 or 4 years ago. There are current comparable sales to warrant lower house valuations. I have to agree with the writer that wrote we have an incompetent appointed county assessor.
Oh Gawd, no...you have awakened the city council complainer!!!!!!
I could be wrong, but property taxes, home evaluation etc, are based on the comp sale prices of the houses, that have been sold. So if houses aren't selling, it's tough/difficult to revalue/adjust property taxes. So homeowners in Sidney will be stuck with higher taxes for a few years.
All, Realize your taxes on your house should have gone down this year. Due to the incompetent current county assessor appointed to her position by the current three inept and corrupt county commissioners the downward reevaluation of properties in this town and county did NOT happen as it was previously scheduled to do so. Just sayin'!
Sounds like a post from the city manager to me. The city manager has focus on the cats the dogs problems doctor johns problems the sign problem the used car business problem the truck parking problem in the last two years.What has been the tone at city hall in regard to actions the city should take in regard to a four and a half billion dollar business located in Sidney which employed close to two thousand people called Cabelas The city policy has been no needed actions the town of Sidney Nebraska will be just fine no matter what happens at Cabelas. No mr city manager the governor of Nebraska issued several public comments to try and help Cabelas stay in Nebraska, you mr city manager did nothing to save the lifeline of Sidney.
If things are so bad, maybe you should try to sell your house and move.
Just what we need! More doom and gloom.
Hey instead of writing about the "bad" housing market in Sidney, why can't the focus be on how high the freakin' taxes are? Maybe consider how the taxes are killing the opportunity for great folks to get to stay around here? Or how businesses are staying away because Nebraska is a tax-happy state. How about that story?
How about a story that talks about how the governor kind of just stood by and watched three major business get swallowed up? What about "the Nebraska tax breaks" that actually break businesses in Nebraska? Maybe a story about how the state government is not helping grow the state? How about a different focus instead of focusing on the folks of Sidney?
Since NO ONE KNOWS about what Bass Pro is going to do, let's shift the focus on how great it is to live in Sidney? Why not write a story about how another business or company would greatly benefit from the folks in Sidney? Cost of living is low and there are good people here.
Did I fail to mention the HIGH TAXES that are killing livelihood in this state?
Did I fail to mention stories about the "bad Sidney housing market" is killing the livelihood of Sidney?