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Ken Wilkinson became Lee County's property appraiser in January 1981, so he's got a good perspective on the recent real estate boom and bust.
When he took office 20 years ago, Wilkinson says Lee's tax rolls totaled $4.5 billion in value. By January 2006, the rolls had swelled to $125 billion in value. In 2010, the total taxable value of land in Lee County was $53 billion.
“We've lost over half the value in this downturn,” Wilkinson told a recent gathering of the Real Estate Investment Society in Fort Myers.
More than 70% of the parcels in Lee County saw their recent tax bills fall because of the decline in values last year. Wilkinson says that's mostly due to the fact that few of the 88 taxing authorities in the county raised their tax rates.
Wilkinson says petitions to challenge his appraisals are at their lowest in 10 to 15 years because of declining values. “I'm going to keep you here until 5 p.m. because today is the deadline for a petition to be filed,” he joked to the lunchtime crowd.
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