Bangor Assessor Announces 2026 Property Tax Updates and Mill Rate

[0:00] Phil Drew: And hello, my name is Phil Drew, City Assessor of Bangor, City Assessor's annual assessment update, effective April 1st, 2026. Below is a new 50 unit apartment building on Sunset Avenue. The purpose of this presentation is to inform real estate owners of how the real estate market has changed over the past year in Bangor and how the assessing department has changed assessed values to track the market. The goal of these changes is to ensure that each property's assessed value closely reflects its market value. We use quality market information, supply and demand changes, inflation in market prices, equality adjustments, fair and equitable assessments. Maine's official assessment date is April 1st every year. The city's fiscal year runs from July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2027. This current period is called fiscal year 2027. K-R-T appraisal revaluation update. K-R-T appraisal LLC did not deliver to the city the preliminary real estate values during the week of June 26th as contracted. Additional months of time will be necessary for K-R-T appraisal to complete their work. Therefore, the City Assessor used existing property data that assessing staff had updated throughout the previous year. No data or valuation models were migrated from KRT appraisal over to the City's data or model. All adjustments to property values have been made by the City Assessor using current mass appraisal software. How is the mill rate or tax rate determined? On an annual basis, the city's finance director reports to the assessor just the dollar amount that needs to be raised or collected from the local property tax on both personal property and real estate. This collection will fund the city and local schools, TIF fund appropriations or operations. The overlay amount, Penobscot County provides the city with a report detailing its share of county apportionment. The municipal mill or tax rate is applied to your property's assessed value to cover all four amounts. The amount to be raised for the city and school budgets has already been reduced by the other funds expected to be collected over the fiscal year from school funding, car registrations, permits, fees, state and federal grants, etc. How is the mill rate determined? For example, for fiscal year 2027, the total taxable amount of property in the city is $4.4 billion. The amount to be raised with property taxes is just about $79.5 million, plus the overlay amount of $261,751.38. The amount we expect to receive from main reimbursements is just over $3.7 million. The actual tax for the commitment then ended up being $76.1 million. This figure is then divided by the city's total taxable value of just over $4.4 billion. And when we do the math, we end up with a mill rate of $0.1713, or $17.13 per $1,000 of net valuation. The 2026 Municipal Tax Rate Calculated Form is basically the sheet that we use, given to us by the state of Maine, to determine the mill rate. All the important figures are summarized here. Year. For example, tax due for a single family or single residence home. Individual tax bills are based on the property's taxable assessed value multiplied by the city's mill rate. For example, properties land value 35,000 building improvement value 215,000 really gives us a total assessed value of $250,000. In this case, the owner gets a $25,000 homestead exemption. And then the taxable CESS value is reduced down to $225,000. We take the $225,000 times the mill rate of 1713, and that gives us the tax amount of $3,854.25. Who pays what share of property taxes in Bangor? So the pie chart shows us that 4.9% of the tax is picked up by reimbursements from the state of Maine that cover homestead, Betty, business equipment tax exemption, renewable energy, 45.2% is covered by commercial industrial land structures and business personal property. Residential one to four family homes, condos, PUDs, mobile homes, and residential vacant land picks up 49.9%. How have tax shares shifted over time. Over the last eight years, the share of bangers property taxes paid by each property type has shifted. Eight years ago, commercial industrial land and buildings, along with business personal property, paid the largest share. Today, residential properties including one to four family homes, condominiums, planned unit developments, mobile homes, and vacant residential land pay the largest share by a narrow margin. State reimbursements have remained relatively stable. And here's the chart from 2019 to 2026. We can see that residential is the orange line, and before it was below commercial, and now it's slightly above. So you can kind of see the shift there. Individual exemptions. For more information on property tax exemptions like homestead, veteran, legally blind, or renewable energy, please contact the assessing department at 207-992-4209. An exemption will reduce the amount that you have to pay in property tax. Individual exemptions, we have the homestead is a $25,000 value reduction, saves just about $428.25. The veteran exemptions, $6,000 tax value reduction, and it saves up to $102.78 in the legally blind, $4,000 valuation adjustment and saves up to $68.52. Please note that solar and renewable energy exemptions are based on the property's contributory value, not its original cost. Magnus mill rate, so last year it was $17.70, this year it's $17.13, that's a 57 cent reduction or about 3%. Please note that the same mill rate or tax rate applies to all real and personal property. Bangor's mill rate, so how has it changed over the last five years? On the left side, for 2022, you see that it was $20.40 per thousand, and this year it's $17.13 per thousand. That steady decline has been mainly due to increases in valuation of the residential properties in Bangor. Frequently asked questions from the public. What if I privately pay for services such as road plowing, road maintenance, trash collection, or child's K-12 education? Can the city apply a lower mill rate because I use fewer municipal services? The answer is no. State law does not currently allow municipalities to set a lower tax rate based on an individual property owner's use of city services. The same rate of $17.13 per thousand of taxable value applies to all property tax bills. Code of Ordinances 28-11. The assessor, so the city's single assessor, shall be appointed by the order of the city council for a term not to exceed five years. No person shall be appointed to the office unless at the time of the appointment he or she has been certified as a professional assessor for the State Bureau of Taxation in accordance with 36 MRSA, Section 301. And powers and duties, the single assessor shall exercise all powers and duties of municipal tax assessor under the Constitution and the laws of the state of Maine. Assessed value. The assessed value or tax value is a property's determined valuation used to calculate the appropriate amount of property tax. The value considers the sales of similar homes, score footage, condition, quality, and current real estate market conditions, to name just a few. Sale period. More than 400 real estate sales were considered in the analysis, with the greatest weight given to sales that occurred between July 2024 and June 2025. What is the property sale ratio? So the sales ratio would be the total assessed value divided by its current, its most recent sale price. price. If a property's total assessed value before exemptions is $300,000 and it sells for $335,000, the sale ratio is about 90% or undervalued by 10 percentage points. And if a property's total assessed value before exemptions is $300,000 and it sells for $270,000, the sale ratio is about 110% or overvalued by 10 percentage points. launch. City policy calls for an overall sales ratio of approximately 100%. As the real estate market changes, assessed values may also change to improve equity among properties. For the April 1, 2026 adjustments, the target ratio was 92%. The assessor proposes making valuation changes based upon neighborhood, property type, and property characteristics. These changes are necessary because some ratio studies showed median ratios below 91% or above 103%. As adjustments bring median ratios closer to target range, equity among properties improves. Single resident home sales. sales. So the green bars would be the average sale price. And the median sale price will be the blue bars from 2021 to 2025. And we see that the average sale price was up about 8.5%. So the median sale price for a single residence home in Bangkok between 2025 and 2026 with just about $284,900 a year over year increase of 5.5%. The median sale price means that half of the homes sold for more than $284,900 and half sold for less. Notable market trends for Penobscot County. So the Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index below is a graph depicting the valuation change from the first quarter of 2025 to the first quarter of 2026. A home in the Bangor MSA region of Maine that sold for $300,000 in the first quarter of 2025 would have likely sold for $329,000 or 9.69% in the first quarter of 2026. Interestingly, the appreciation in Bangor MSA was larger than Maine as a whole. The top line in the graph depicts Bangor, Maine. Price appreciation indicated by repeat sales in Bangor from January, 2024 to March, 2026. So we have property type, number of sales, and the median annualized appreciation rate. So we have single residents. There were seven sales and 6% increase. Condo PUD, there was just one sale, 4% increase. Mobile homes and parks or multi-unit apartment buildings. buildings. We did not have any repeat sales in that short time period. Residential vacant parcels, one sale, a 24% increase. And then we had a downtown office condo, one sale that was 5% decrease. Is my assessment equitable? There are two primary ways to evaluate whether an assessment is equitable. First, compare the properties assessed value with the sale prices of similar properties sold in Bangor between April 1st, 2025 and March 2026. If there are no recent comparables, compare the assessment with those of other properties that have similar characteristics. Because properties differ in location, size, condition, quality, and other features, comparisons should focus on the properties that are most similar. The next slide highlights a small sample of properties that have sold twice within the past few years. For each property, note the percentage change and the sale price and the time between sales. On Woodbury Street, single family sold in 2024 for 220,000, sold in 2025 for 235,000. That's a 7% increase over 16 months. On 7th Street, we have a single family and it sold in 2024 for $265,000 and sold in 2025 for $289,000. That's a 12% increase over nine months. Brighton Avenue off of Ohio Street, single family in 2025, it sold for $353,500, and then it sold later in 2025 for $377,000. That's a 7% increase over eight months. Courtland Circle, Condo PUD, sold in 2024 for $300,000, sold in 2025 for $315,000. That's a 5% increase over 15 months. Lincoln Street, we had some residential vacant land. In the picture, there's a slab that's being started, but that was not there at the time of sale. Sold in 2024 for $45,000, then sold again in 2025 for $55,000. That's a 22% increase over 11 months. Summary of market appreciation. The previous slides provided an indication of the direction of change in market appreciation over the period from calendar year 2024 to calendar year 2026. Below the annualized percentage change appreciation rates. Single family, 6%. Condo PUD, 4%. Vacant residential land, 24%. This year's assessed values include neighborhood-specific adjustments to address areas of under-assessment or over-assessment. Sales from July 2024 through June 2025 were analyzed to identify where these adjustments were needed and improve equity among properties. What is a neighborhood and why are neighborhood-specific adjustments made? A residential neighborhood has a group of similar properties affected by the same location and market conditions. As discussed earlier, sales ratios statistics are developed for each neighborhood. When a neighborhood's median sales ratio falls below 91% or rises above 103%, an upward or downward adjustment may be considered. The following slides identify the affected neighborhoods and summarize the percentage changes. Summary of citywide adjustments effective April 1st, 2026. Residential properties, residential, building, and outbuilding values increased, while land values generally remain unchanged from 2025. Single family homes, 10% increase, plus any applicable neighborhood adjustment. Condominiums or PUDs, 9% increase, plus any applicable neighborhood adjustment. Two-unit properties, 13% increase, plus any applicable neighborhood adjustment. Properties with three or more units, 15% increase, plus any applicable neighborhood adjustment. Manufactured homes and parks, approximately 15%. Commercial industrial properties values also increased, with adjustments varying by property type. Depreciated building values were based on 2023 Marshall Valuation Service replacement cost data plus a nine percent city adjustment. Overall median value increases for commercial industrial properties range from five to twenty percent. The next three slides show all the residential properties grouped by neighborhood. A neighborhood is a city defined area with properties having similar characteristics such as location, use, style, and a city's neighborhood code number, neighborhood name, or streets in the neighborhood, median percentage increase in value, and the number of properties within. So we see by this table, we have the residential neighborhood, the streets or community name, the median percentage change, and number of properties. So the first one, Colonial Pines mobile home community, we call it neighborhood 58. That's a 10% reduction, and there were 30 properties in that neighborhood. And the rest of the properties or neighborhoods are kind of in order by the median percentage change. At the bottom of this page, we see Briarwood, Whisper, and Ellis Court neighborhoods. They saw a 10% neighborhood adjustment, and 165 properties were adjusted. Another sheet of neighborhood changes, we see most of these were up by 10 percent for the neighborhood adjustment. For example, Yale, Juniper, and Howard and Darmoth went up 11 percent, and at the bottom, Bangor Gardens, they went up 16 percent. Seer Falls, 18 increase, 130 properties in that neighborhood, and then Deer Go Drive, Blue Hill West at the bottom, 24% increase, 139 properties are in that neighborhood. Here are residential neighborhoods that received the additional 10% increase. How well did the model perform? Let's review the median sales ratio for each neighborhood using just sales from April 1st, 2025 to March 2026. So if we look at the Bangor Gardens, the first one is neighborhood what we call 10, and we had 12 sales in that neighborhood. The median ratio after making our adjustments was 105 percent. If we look at the bottom line, Riverwalk Village condo, we had one sale, and that ratio is 96 percent. So if we just look at the column of median ratio statistics, they all seem pretty uniform. Single family properties received an additional increase based upon sales July 2024 through June 2025 to evaluate how well the model performed, we reviewed the median sales ratio for each property type is in sales from April 1st, 2025 through March, 2026. The results show that additional work will be needed next year for three and four unit properties as their median ratios remained in the 70% range. So in this one, we have number of dwelling units. The first line is two units. The location of property, really it's in all neighborhoods. Number of sales, 41 sales, median ratio after adjustment, 94, average sale price per dwelling unit, 140 thousand six hundred dollars. Next line is three units, we had five sales, the median ratio is 77 even after the adjustments, the average sale price per dwelling unit, 106 600, and then we had four units, there were 11 sales, median ratio 79, and the average sale price per dwelling unit of 100 1 300. Then we have commercial industrial neighborhoods that were adjusted. This one has the commercial neighborhood code, neighborhood street, median percentage change, number of properties. Top line, neighborhood 48, Conger Street, South Park, French and Garland, mostly commercial, larger apartment buildings, 20%. There were 16 properties. And then if you look down through, most of the percentage increases were above 7%. If we do look down at the bottom, State Street, Broadway, and Newton Street, there are 68 properties in that neighborhood. And there was a slight reduction indicated. Indicated commercial industrial ratio study. So in this one, what's shown here are individual sales of commercial or industrial improved properties. So we start with the account number, the map and lot, a description of the property, the sale date, sale price, and the April 1st 2026 valuation, and the ratio percentage. So the first line, sale price of 255,000, the assessed value was 104,500. So it was assessed at 41% of market value. So in summary, we had a total of 22 sales. The total of all the sale prices together, 45.8 million. The total valuation was $42 million. So the ratio statistic, the median ended up being at 80%. Due to the small number of sales and the variability in the type of property, we looked at the weighted mean, and that represented 92%. So we've done our best to keep it equitable with other property types. Employment in the Bangor region. As of December 2025, total employment in the Bangor Metropolitan Statistical Area had declined by 1.1% from the previous year, bringing the number of jobs to 72,600. The region's unemployment rate fell from 3.8% to 3.4%. However, it remained higher than the rates in Maine overall and in the Lewiston and Portland areas. The Portland, South Portland region had an unemployment rate of 2.7%, and the source was the Federal Reserve of Boston. The next slide shows how taxable sales in Bangeriff changed from calendar year 2024 to 2025 according to Maiden Revenue Services. The lodging category saw the largest change year over year with a decrease of 14%. So here we have the classification by the state, the sales, taxable sales in 2024, taxable sales in 2025, and year-over-year change. Change so the first line is auto transportation, just over 50, 551 million dollars of sales in 2025, is 550 million dollars, so there was a slight reduction year over year. And we can look through the different types of categories that the state provides to us, but the one I pointed out earlier year was lodging at the bottom, sales in 2024, 61.9 million dollars, and 2025 dropped to 53.3 million dollars. That's a 14 increase. So the total for the city of Bangor year over year really was a 1.7 decrease, the next slide shows the valuation increases applied to apartment buildings and other commercial industrial properties. So here we have the commercial occupancy type and the median valuation increase, hotel and motel 8.5 percent increase, storage and distribution warehouses 8.4 percent increase, convenience store 5.7 percent increase, service garage 6.7 percent increase, office and medical office 8.6% increase, retail and discount stores range between 7.8% and 8.6%, restaurant and fast food range from 7.8% and to 8.2%, large multi-family apartments about 9.5%. So when we look at the commercial industrial percentage change by area, what was the median value increase? If we look at the Hammond Street and Main Avenue areas, about 8.5%. If we look at Hogan Road and Stillwater area, we're about 7.3 percent. We look at Broadway retail area would be up 6.7 percent, and we have Union Street retail area up 9.2 percent, Hammond area industrial parks up 8.4 percent, downtown office of retail up 8.8 percent, and like we talked about earlier, the State Street neighborhood was down about 1.6 percent. Were the adjustments necessary? In assessing standard, all municipalities should achieve the following standard pursuant to Title 36, Section 327. The assessment ratio standard is between 70% and 110%. 100% is the optimum level. A closer look at the data shows that 187 properties sold between October 2025 and March 2026. After the previously described adjustments, the median sales ratio was 93%. Without those adjustments, it would have remained in the low 80% range. The goal of these valuation changes is to reflect current market trends and bring the sales ratio closer to 100%. The real estate market in Bangor is still seeing a modest upward trend in prices paid for new and existing homes, as well as apartment buildings according to mainlistings.com. For a single family, the monthly median days on market from October 2025 to March 2026 range from a low of 17 days in that month to a high of 56 days in a month. The average of the monthly figures results in about 34 days. Multifamily had some months that were down to three days, up to 138 days, with an average of 40 days on the market. Condo PUD properties average was about 88 days, or just under three months. The next few slides show homes that were constructed and finished by April 1st, 2026, included other properties, general location, building style, and assessed value. New home on Walter Street is a two unit, assessed value two hundred forty thousand eight hundred dollars, over sixty six dollars per square foot, or a hundred twenty thousand dollars per unit. It did say sell on April twenty third, twenty six, for three hundred and forty five thousand two hundred dollars. New home on 13th Street, it's a ranch. The assessed value 261 300, or 235 dollars per square foot. It did sell on October 30th, 2025, for 297 000. New home on Being Estates, it's a ranch, total value 397 600, or 208 dollars per square foot, sold June 26, 2026, for $510,000. What about the commercial industrial buildings or remodeled, built or remodeled in Bangor? Are they being assessed at reasonable values? The answer is yes. New pharmacy at 364 State Street, the assessed value is $722,000, or $241 per square foot. New fast coffee shop at 28 Haskell Road, assessed value $605,500, or $397 per square foot, and that is the value for just the building. Rebuild of convenience store at 1105 Hayman Street, assessed value $2.7 million for store and car wash. Changing Bangor's housing stock over the past year, 29 single-family units were completed between April 1st, 2025, and March, 2026. Seven two-unit dwelling units have been completed. Seven mobile homes moved into park communities. Five older dwelling units were demolished. Business personal property. Commercial businesses and leasing companies are required to pay local property tax based on the total depreciated value of their taxable business assets. Taxable property may include computers, point-of-sale equipment, copiers, office furniture, store fixtures, signs, trailers, machinery, manufacturing or process equipment, and gambling machines or devices. Each year, the assessing department provides a declaration form from businesses to report their taxable assets. Business personal property programs. For more information on business equipment tax exemption or business equipment tax rebate, please contact the assessing department 207-992-4212. An exemption or rebate will help reduce the amount you pay in actual tax dollars. Business personal property highlights. In 2025, Bangor businesses purchased more than $39 million in machinery and equipment, computers, fixtures, furniture, and other business assets. These purchases included 6,203 individual assets with a total depreciated value of $33 million. Through Maine's Business Equipment Tax Exemption Program, approximately $14 million, or just over 42% of that depreciated value, was exempt from local taxation. The remaining $19 million, or approximately 57%, was taxable. Both portions help reduce the city's mill rate. The city receives state reimbursements for Bedi exempt property, while taxes are collected directly on the remaining tax property. We welcome all questions and comments about this presentation. Please call our office at 992-4209 or stop by to see us between 8 a.m. and 4.15 p.m. Monday through Friday. We are located in City Hall at 73 Harlow Street. This annual assessment update is also available on the City Assessor's webpage. Please review the Assessor's PowerPoint presentation or watch the recorded presentation for a helpful explanation of this year's evaluation adjustments. You can go to www.BangorMaine.gov slash assessing.