Appeals board chair says Anchorage cut appealed property values but not neighbors'

Anchorage property appraisers cut valuations on appealed properties by nearly $100,000 on average, without making the same changes to similar properties that weren't appealed, Board of Equalization Chair Ian Moore wrote in an annual report to the Anchorage Assembly dated Thursday. The report gives no figures for unappealed properties.

"This appears to have set up a disparity in valuations between neighbors that appealed in 2026 and those that didn't," he wrote.

The report says staff made subjective changes to "Grade Factor," the city's quality-of-construction ratings, on more than half of appealed properties "in an effort to avoid hearings before the BOE," "despite most appeals providing little or no evidence."

Appeals jumped from 455 in 2025 to 1,990 this year. The Assessor's office lowered values on 91% of the 1,822 appeals settled or withdrawn without a hearing. Across all finalized appeals, the board calculated a net decrease of about $185.3 million, or 16%, averaging $93,379 per property. The board upheld the Assessor's value in 143 of the 163 appeals it heard.

The city's property assessments FAQ says its 2026 grade system replaced a more detailed one that was over-stratified and inconsistently applied, and that informal reviews often make formal appeals unnecessary. The Assessor's office found about 660 homes over-assessed because of incorrect quality-of-construction grades and mailed lower notices.

Moore also flagged the opposite problem. The appeals process can't fix undervaluations, which shift taxes onto every other owner, because owners may challenge only their own value. He cited staff testimony that a commercial property under appeal was "undervalued by nearly 50% due to a modeling error" but likely wouldn't be revalued, or only gradually, out of concern about "economic harm." He called that an apparent "double standard" given how dramatically thousands of residential assessments changed for 2026.

"Logic dictates that we should expect even more appeals next year," Moore wrote. He recommended an annual outside audit of the city's mass appraisal system and publication of the sales records and cost models behind it.