Letter from David Petri

Questions On Property Value

Does the state and county inflate our real property values?

On January 14, NYSAuctions.com (Absolute Auctions & Realty Inc.) listed and sold approximately 150 real properties in tax foreclosures for Otsego County. An online auction is without doubt the most level playing field for determining full market and fair market value for any item sold. Whereas the assessor, who is an appraiser, represents only one man’s opinion.

In the online auction, the bidders and buyers become—in a group form—the appraisers and assessors. Of these properties or parcels, there were 21 that had gains, most of which were land parcels; 14 in total. Some went slightly over the assessed value, while others had significant gains, some perhaps from bidding wars. The rest were structures, including three homes. One home in Middlefield, built in 2019 in ranch style and assessed at $37,500.00, sold for $149,000.00. This is strange, being it was owned by a former assessor. Do you think this is interesting?

Now let’s take a look at the larger percentage of the tax sale properties—all losses. We will do this by using the tax sale percentage of the full market value. First, it becomes clear to me from this total sale that older homes, because of lead paint and asbestos, have taken a nose dive. The two homes that I previously mentioned that had the gains were of much more recent construction.

The figure for percentage of loss ended up being all over the place, from 6 percent to 98 percent. Six fell in the 0-10 percent range, 16 fell in the 11-20 percent range, 16 fell in the 21-30 percent range, 13 fell in the 31-40 percent range, 14 fell in the 41-50 percent range, 12 fell in the 51-60 percent range, 11 fell in the 61-70 percent range, 6 fell in the 71-80 percent range, 4 fell in the 81-90 percent range, and 5 fell in the 91-99 percent range.

Another 10 or 11 parcels never even made an opening bid, with a starting price way below the assessed value. Do you want these assessors to do an appraisal for you? Maybe we should go back to the old three-assessor system our forefathers put in place.

Two of these properties that were sold had a strong historical value to the history of Otsego County. One was the old Unadilla House, which was assessed at $182,927.00 and sold for $83,958.10. The other was the old Caryl’s store in East Worcester, which was assessed at $197,324.00 and sold at 18 percent, for a price of $34,626.32. Was the assessor a little bit off on this one?

On February 4, 2026, I attended the Otsego County Board of Representatives meeting and listened to their conversations regarding the homeless people of Otsego County. We now have several contracts for using hotels and motels to house these people from the weather at tax payers’ cost. Do you think we should continue to raise taxes and throw more people out of their homes? Some board members say there is no affordable housing. Do they forget when you raise taxes, landlords are also forced to raise rent?

The county and state socked the Town of Hartwick across the board with a 13.1 percent tax hike and the Town of Springfield with one of 13.4 percent. I think this is insane, being Hartwick is composed of several different assessed areas. The hamlet of Hartwick has a water district, then there is Arnold Lake, State Route 28 and the balance of the town. Also, many of our houses have some age and contain lead paint and are probably less desirable to the current buyer. Do you think an across-the-board tax hike is right and fair?

All entities of government, including schools, need to wake up and realize that they need to live within their means or people will continue to leave this state in droves. Otsego County says it wants to buy the Huntington property to expand operations. Let’s take a step back in time to 1870. The county was the same size in square miles as today. The population was only around 10,000 less than today. If we take Oneonta out of the picture, we would actually have a loss. Only seven out of all our towns have an increase since 1870. Should we or do we really need to increase operations? Do you think the county and state inflate our real property values so they and the public schools can continue their reckless spending?

David Petri
Hartwick