Mason County Real Estate Valuations Trends

Growing populations in and around Lexington, Cincinnati, and Louisville support expanded public services. Mason County must also be growing if we are to support improved services here.

Inflation makes the same services cost more each year. The tax base must grow to pay that inflated cost if the tax rate is constant. Until 2003 Mason County’s tax base did grow faster than inflation, and new services were possible. Growth continually slowed until 2011 and has fallen dramatically since.

The decline in the assessed value of the real estate that funds most of our local services leaves the taxpayers of Mason County with these choices:

  1. Accept 13.6 % fewer local services that they had in 2011
  2. Increase the tax rates on residential and commercial property to make up for the loss in assessed value. Ag land has substantially less income so can not bear even the same tax it paid in 2011. Every crop year of no-till corn and soybeans washes away precious topsoil and those acres’ value (and ability to pay taxes) drops.
  3. Continue to hope for the equivalent of winning the lottery by recruiting a nonpolluting industry that will hire a large workforce.
  4. Recruit 6,000 acres of large-scale solar that will pay an extra half million dollars in real estate property taxes each year while protecting that acreage from the erosion and ag chemical pollution of no-till corn and soybeans.

We must change these trends. Mason County citizens deserve a healthy and prosperous life. 

Data and Calculations supporting comments

Raw historical data on real estate taxes over time provided by Troy Craycraft

See below for the raw real estate property assessed values provided by Mason County PVA Troy Craycraft.

Assessed Real Estate data in tabular format
Estimated values use the same portion as the average proportion of the three components in the years where their components were known.

Investigating the contribution of Residential, Commercial, and Agricultural shows all are following the same trends. Each grew nicely relative to inflation thru 2003, and all have had a significant loss since 2011. Residential real estate’s assessed value hardly grew from 2003 thru 2011. During that period as the tobacco buyout ended, Ag real estate’s assessed value only slightly exceeded inflation while commercial real estate assessments grew nicely. In the decade since 2011 the assessed value, in 2022 equivalent dollars, of all three has declined by 13.6%.