Based on remarks by the county’s tax director at the Guilford County Board of Commissioners’ Friday, Jan. 30, annual retreat, most property owners are about to get a shock in their mailboxes.

When new reappraisal notices for the 2026 countywide revaluation of all property in the county are mailed out around Valentine’s Day, the Tax Department’s assessments aren’t likely to bring the same joy that Valentine’s Day cards from lovers will: The county’s overall real estate tax base value is expected to increase by an average of 40 to 45 percent – with some properties, especially housing, coming in higher.

Guilford County Tax Director Ben Chavis laid out the details of the reappraisal process at the retreat on Friday at the ACC Hall of Champions, which is part of the Greensboro Coliseum Complex.

“We’re confident saying it’s going to be somewhere between 40 and 45 percent,” Chavis told the commissioners and other county staff. “But folks need to remember this – even though one property owner’s value may increase 40 percent and others may increase 30 percent, and others may increase more than 40 percent, people are going to be impacted differently based on the market area that they are in.”

Chavis stressed that the percentage reflects an overall average across the county – not a guarantee of what any individual homeowner or business will see.

“Just don’t take this percentage and multiply it times your current value and say that’s what my value is going to be,” he said. “It’s a little bit more complicated than that because we have 2,500 market areas in Guilford County.”

The Tax Department is in the final stages of reappraising roughly 220,000 properties, a process that began earlier than planned after Guilford County was “triggered” by the North Carolina Department of Revenue to conduct a reappraisal ahead of schedule.

Under state law, counties must reappraise property values at least every eight years, though Guilford has been operating on a shorter four- to five-year cycle.

But after the county’s 2022 reappraisal, state data showed that Guilford’s sales assessment ratio had dropped below the state-mandated threshold.

 “We were at 84.95,” Chavis said. “When that ratio falls beneath 85 percent, that triggers a reappraisal. There was no convincing anybody of delaying this thing. We were pretty well locked in.”

A sales ratio compares a property’s assessed value to its actual sales price.

The Department of Revenue calculates those ratios annually for all 100 counties in North Carolina and uses them to determine whether counties are keeping values close enough to market realities.

Guilford wasn’t alone: Chavis said 22 other counties across the state were triggered for early reappraisals during that same period.

Much of the pressure on values came from dramatic changes in the housing market following the pandemic.

“Between 2019 and December of ’23 especially, the marketplace was going crazy,” Chavis said. “There was high demand for housing. Folks were moving around all over the place, and those values were being driven up.”

Population growth, tight housing supply and rising prices all combined to push values higher.

Chavis cited MLS data showing that the median sales price in Guilford County rose sharply over a short period.

Income growth and inflation added to the pressure, though Chavis said both have shown signs of stabilizing since. Across North Carolina, he noted, recent reappraisals in other counties have produced value increases ranging from 25 percent to as high as 73 percent.

Residential property owners will be the first to see the new numbers.

Commercial property owners will get their notices later.

Chavis told the board that residential values are complete and notices are scheduled to be mailed and posted online around February 17.

At the same time, the county will open its formal appeal window.

“We’re basically done with the residential values,” Chavis said. “The only thing left is to prepare the file to send to our print vendor and get those in the mail.”

Commercial properties will follow about a month later, with roughly 18,500 commercial notices expected to be mailed in March. This reappraisal includes a significant change on the commercial side – the introduction of the income approach for valuing income-producing properties.

“Typically, when you have an income-producing commercial property, it’s going to be valued on the income approach,” Chavis said. “Historically, Guilford County has used the cost approach. We’ve introduced the income approach with this reappraisal, and that’s probably going to cause property owners to be more engaged with the process.”

If commercial owners believe their values are off, Chavis said they’ll likely submit income and expense data to support appeals.

Despite the attention often given to large commercial properties, Chavis reminded the commissioners that residential owners shoulder most of the county’s tax base.

 “Residential property is 65 percent of our base,” he said. “Commercial makes up 35 percent. In essence, the residential property owner carries most of the tax burden in Guilford County.”

Once notices go out this month, property owners will be able to review values and appeal them through an online portal called AppealsPro, or by submitting a paper appeal. Another online tool, Copper Citizen, will allow owners to compare their property data and neighborhood sales with similar nearby properties.

“We want them to be engaged,” Chavis said. “We want them to be giving us feedback as to whether they feel like their value is appropriate and where it needs to be.”

The deadline to appeal to the county’s Board of Equalization and Review will be May 15.

 If appeals aren’t resolved at the staff level, they’ll be heard by the board. Some cases, particularly high-value commercial properties, may eventually reach the state Property Tax Commission.

After the last reappraisal, appeals reduced Guilford County’s real property base by about 1.5 percent, or roughly $1 billion – though it took nearly two years to fully resolve those cases.

This time, based on experience in peer counties, Chavis said staff is planning for a 3 percent reduction, or about $2.5 billion, due to appeals.

That adjusted figure will be used by county budget staff as commissioners begin setting the tax rate later this year. Municipalities will follow with their own rates, and tax bills are expected to be mailed in July.

While the Rhino Times would like to see the commissioners keep property taxes “revenue neutral” – that is, essentially lower the tax rate to keep tax bills the same amount and the revenue coming into the county the same (aside from any new development in the last year) – the chances of that happening appear to be nonexistent.

The best county residents can probably hope for in June is that the board gives some relief to taxpayers buy not leaving the tax rate where it is. However, it is a distinct possibility that the board could leave the tax rate where it is and make property owners eat the entire increase.

When Chairman of the Board of Commissioners Skip Alston was asked his view on the matter, he shifted quickly to the massive debt the county is facing from school bonds and the other county projects.

While Republican Commissioner Pat Tillman told the Rhino Times earlier this year that it would almost be unthinkable to let the residents take that entire hit, he’s only one of two Republicans on the board and the Democrats don’t seem to be

thinking along the same lines.

When the Rhino Times asked Commissioner Carlvena Foster if she had been hearing concerns from her constituents about rising property tax bills, she said she had not and she added, “The county has a lot of things to pay for.”

Democratic Commissioner Mary Beth Murphy told the Rhino Times that she wants to see all the exact budget and tax revenue numbers during the coming budget process before deciding what to do about the tax rate.  She said that way it would be a very informed decision but right now it’s too early to call.

The county is currently trying to decide how to pay back well over $3 billion in school bond debt counting interest and recently announced plans for $572 million in new capital projects including a new government complex in downtown Greensboro.

So, taxpayers might be wise not to get their hopes up and instead work on getting their savings accounts up.

But there could be some relief for selected pockets of payers.

At the retreat, Chavis also outlined existing and proposed tax relief programs, particularly for elderly and low-income residents. Current programs include exemptions for disabled veterans and a circuit breaker program, though participation in the latter is limited because it places taxes in a deferred status.

The commissioners have also set aside $500,000 in the current budget for a new low-income homeowner assistance program that’s still under development.

“Hopefully it’ll be in place by the time we roll around into the new fiscal year,” Chavis said.

The program is expected to mirror a similar grant program offered by the City of Greensboro, with the county anticipating between 500 and 1,000 applications.

Throughout the discussion, commissioners acknowledged that even a fair process won’t ease the anxiety many county residents feel. One commissioner noted that homeowners often insist their properties are undervalued for tax purposes, then expect full market value when it’s time to sell.

“Nobody wants their taxes to go up,” Chavis said. “But at the same time, it’s about fairness. It’s about getting everybody back to market value and making sure we’ve created an equitable situation where we haven’t treated one group of properties any different than another.”

By mid-February, property owners across Guilford County will begin finding out exactly where they fall in that equation.

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