Public appraisal info alarms industrial owners

Discrepancies between information newly listed on the website for Miami-Dade’s property appraiser and real world figures are raising concerns for many in the industrial real estate sector.

“In January, a broker offered to sell us a building with about 21,000 square feet,” Barry Sharpe, president of Barry Sharpe Property Tax Appeal Group, told Miami Today. “In March, ready to have the property appraised, we find – to our surprise – that it now measures about 24,000 square feet.”

Despite the affects additional square footage would have on asking rents, market value of the property and insurance, Miami-Dade Property Appraiser Lazaro Solis said that the valuation of the warehouse won’t change.

“Our calculations and how we arrive at value did not change,” Solis said, referring to the fact that the new publically viewable building information is what the appraisers have always used in their internal system. “In our effort to put more information on the website, information appears new but it’s what we’ve always used.”

Solis added that there will be updates and that discrepancies had only occurred at a handful of warehouse properties.

Sharpe and others in his position, however, remain concerned: “Most people do not survey their property,” he said. “They look at the square feet listed on the MLS.” [Miami Today] – Christopher Cameron