Cook County Assessor's Federal Appraisal Data Plan Receives

Cook County Assessor's Federal Appraisal Data Plan Receives

Support from National Association of Counties

The Board of Directors of the National Association of Counties (NACo) called for the release of property characteristics data from the federal government, a crucial step to improving assessment accuracy and fairness across the country.

NACo, a national county government group, endorsed the resolution on March 1 during the group’s annual legislative conference following adoption by NACo’s Committee on Community, Economic and Workforce Development.

The resolution, sponsored by Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi and Maricopa County Assessor Eddie Cook. calls for the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to release its dataset of millions of property appraisals to 16 of the largest assessment offices in the country.

This proposal tackles a national problem in the property tax system – the tendency for assessments to be regressive. This means that less valuable homes are overvalued, while expensive homes are undervalued. The effect of this can be that working-class homeowners end up paying more than their fair share in property taxes, particularly compared to the very wealthiest homeowners.

Researchers have suggested that one reason for this regressivity is a lack of data about property characteristics. With more data, the Cook County Assessor’s Office and other assessment jurisdictions around the country can improve the accuracy and fairness of their assessments.

“In recent years, we’ve eliminated a large portion of the regressivity in Cook County’s residential assessments,” said Assessor Kaegi. “With the release of this data, we would be able to clear one of the final hurdles to achieving thoroughly fair and accurate assessments.”

The FHFA collects appraisal records from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government sponsored enterprises that guarantee mortgages. The Uniform Appraisal Dataset (UAD) of these records contains parcel-level data on property characteristics. Currently, most of this data is inaccessible to government assessors.

To make assessments fairer and more accurate, the Cook County Assessor’s Office, along with 15 other assessment jurisdictions, first asked the FHFA to share this appraisal data in 2021.

“This is a crucial step as we strive to obtain additional information that will improve our data sets and lead to fairer and more equitable property valuations for homeowners,” said Maricopa County Assessor Cook. “I am grateful to the NACo Board for supporting our efforts."

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