ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Reassessment notices for the town of Irondequoit arrived at mailboxes this weekend, but many homeowners are opening up their letters to find surprising results. The assessor says there will be some variation is results.

Irondequoit resident Helene Snihur is surprised to see her housing assessment increased from $144,000 to $229,000 in this round of assessments. She says it seems unrealistic, especially since she lives in front of a highway and her house is assessed similarly to a waterfront property. With so many properties being assessed, Town of Irondequoit Assessor Amy Jorstad says there will be discrepancies.

“21,000 properties, it’s mass appraisal, it’s not exact. We’re not going out to every single house and taking into account every single factor because we simply cannot do that, it’s too much.”

Snihur, however, is concerned she’ll be taxed more and the assessment is going to keep people from wanting to buy her house.

Jorstad says to come up with assessments, they use a computer model to compare a home against five similar homes that were sold. 

She says the reason for the increase is because of the way the housing market is today and the fact that houses haven’t been assessed since 2018 – meaning what Snihur received beforehand was an estimate. According to Jorstad, all of Monroe County is experiencing a rise in reassessments.

“The taxable value for Irondequoit went up 45% since the last time we did a reassessment project which was just in 2018. So that’s a huge increase. They’re a little bit unprecedented.”

According to Jorstad, whether or not your taxes will increase will depend on different variables, not just the assessment.

“The fact is the taxing jurisdictions have to raise a certain amount of money – it’s called a levee – through taxes. If I were to drop assessments in half next year – the taxing jurisdictions would still have to collect the same amount of money.”

As for whether or not Snihur’s property is valued properly based on location – she will have to reach out for an informal review before May 23rd by heading to tax.ny.gov.