Regular readers of our Minnesota Commercial Property Tax Appeals Blog will recall we recently published a post asking if a hike to commercial property taxes is coming. This is the second post in that three-part series.
Lining up
Battle lines have been drawn as local governments trying to make up for revenue lost to the pandemic square up against commercial property owners trying to get their taxes reduced so that they’re more in line with bottom lines also shrunken by the pandemic.
According to Bisnow, “tax experts say the prospect of a relatively short downturn might give taxing authorities the upper hand” in that battle.
Because many economists and government officials expect a robust recovery, most commercial property owners are sitting tight.
No fire sales, except . . .
Moody’s Analytics Head of Commercial Real Estate Economics Victor Calanog said they have “yet to identify a systemic sell-off at fire-sale prices for commercial properties,” though he did point to a couple of exceptions: the hotel and retail sectors.
Marc Wieder of the Anchin, Block & Anchin Real Estate Group says property owners in those sectors “were caught in a year where they’re suffering from poor or nonexistent revenues, they were paying real estate taxes as if it were a year earlier.”
No helping hand
Wieder also points out that while individuals, some small businesses and local governments have received aid in the three federal stimulus packages, “landlords have gotten no assistance from the federal government. They were ineligible for PPP loans, and while residential tenants had eviction moratoriums, there was no relief for landlords.”
He adds that landlords are turning to the tax appeals process to get “a bit of relief.”
We’ll finish this series in an upcoming post. Please check back.