Luzerne County’s property assessments still deemed accurate

Using an annual statistic as a benchmark, Luzerne County’s property assessments are the second most accurate among the 67 Pennsylvania counties, even though it has been 16 years since the last countywide reassessment took effect.

The statistic: common level ratios released by the State Tax Equalization Board, or STEB, that compare prior-year real estate sales prices to the assessed values in each county.

An ideal ratio is 100, which means purchase prices closely mirror assessments.

Luzerne County’s new ratio is 86.2. The only county with a ratio closer to 100 is Philadelphia, at 90.70. Philadelphia reassessed last year.

For comparison, here are the ratios of some other similarly-sized third class counties: Berks, 34.37; Chester, 31.84; Cumberland, 67.80; Dauphin, 40.42; Erie, 53.21; Lackawanna, which is currently undergoing its first reassessment since the 1960s, 5.68; Lancaster, 53.43; Lehigh, 49.40; Westmoreland, 8.88; and York, 50.46.

Ratios below the ideal score of 100 indicate more properties are selling above assessments — a possible sign of underassessment. The reverse would be true — overassessment — for ratios surpassing 100. No Pennsylvania counties have ratios above 100.

Higher real estate purchase prices plunged the county’s ratio to 69.4 in 2023, but it bounced back to 86.8 last year and remained about the same with the new figure.

State law requires STEB to use “statistically acceptable techniques” in arriving at the ratio. It collects validated sales from county assessor’s offices.

In Luzerne County, 747 property sales were used as a basis for the latest ratio, according to STEB’s report. This is lower than the sample sizes in the other previously cited third-class counties, which ranged from 1,982 in Erie to 5,297 in Chester. Third-class counties have populations from 210,000 to 499,999, with this county falling in the middle range at 325,600.

County Chief Assessor/Assessment Director Kristin Montgomery said her priority is quality over quantity. She indicated she personally reviews all sales to ensure they are arm’s length transactions and has implemented a thorough validation procedure to ensure as many sales as possible are included.

For example, Montgomery said prior procedures had excluded sales under the ownership of business names because the transactions often involved leases and equipment/personal property in addition to the actual real estate. However, she now reviews such transactions for possible inclusion because many are now selling residential property through limited liability corporations.

In another example, Montgomery said she digs deeper if a property documented as poor or unsound condition in assessment records sells at a going rate. There have been cases where sellers have fully remodeled the interiors to flip real estate without obtaining building permits that would trigger a fresh review by the assessor’s office, she said. Transactions in that situation must be invalidated because the assessment does not reflect what was purchased, she said.

“I take a more cautious approach in analyzing sales data to find valid ones. I want it to be as accurate as possible,” Montgomery said.

Ratio monitoring is necessary to help determine if another countywide reassessment is warranted, and the county administration has repeatedly emphasized there are no plans to proceed with a mass revaluation at this time.

Luzerne County’s last reassessment took effect in 2009 and had been the first mass revaluation since 1965.

Montgomery said the ratio is “just one of many tools” used to evaluate if a reassessment is warranted. While the ratio provides an average for the county as a whole, there may be neighborhoods or regions within the county that have greater deviations from the perfect ratio score, she said.

Proposed legislation currently in committee — Senate Bill 567 — would mandate a frequency schedule of reassessments.

State Sen. Wayne Fontana, a Democrat representing the 42nd District in the Pittsburgh area, said in a December 2024 co-sponsorship memo for this legislation that Pennsylvania is the only state in the country with a base-year property assessment system that does not mandate periodic reassessments.

As a result, 54 of the state’s 67 counties have not reassessed in 12 or more years, including 10 counties that have not reassessed in more than 45 years, Fontana wrote, emphasizing the last detail with an exclamation point.