With the signing of an agreement by the Sawtooth Board of Realtors last week, Blaine County Assessor Valdi Pace is one step away from finally receiving local real estate sales data.
In exchange for gaining the valuable data, Blaine County will provide detailed property information to the board of Realtors pertaining to such things as the year homes in the county were built, lot sizes and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms in each home.
All that stands in the way of Pace's receiving the long-sought real estate sales information is for the Blaine County Commission to sign off on the deal. On Tuesday, the commissioners discussed the agreement, but ultimately delayed taking a vote on the matter until several issues are clarified.
"I'm not ready to approve this today because I have too many concerns," said Commissioner Larry Schoen.
Chief among Schoen's concerns is how the board of Realtors will use the property information and what kinds of safeguards are put in place to protect county taxpayers. Under the deal, the property information would be given to the board of Realtors en masse in list form, but could not be used or provided to anyone else who is not a member of the real estate group.
Property information is already accessible from the county assessor's office to anyone who requests it, but is only provided on a case-by-case basis and not in list form.
Ongoing conversations this year between Pace, County Commissioner Tom Bowman and representatives from the board of Realtors were initiated after the Idaho Legislature approved a bill that requires real estate sales data to be reported to local Realtor groups like the Sawtooth board. The Legislature failed to approve another bill that would have required that real estate sales disclosure data be provided to county assessors.
In general, real estate sales data information provided to the county assessor's office under the tentative deal could not be provided to the general public. Only if a homeowner were challenging his or her property value assessment would that individual be given sales data, and in those cases, only the data from surrounding home sales transactions in that person's neighborhood.
"We're not just going to hand them a list," Pace told the commissioners.
If the commissioners sign off on the agreement with the board of Realtors, the assessor's office will receive sales data from July 1, 2008, forward.
Blaine County Deputy Prosecutor Tim Graves said the board of Realtors is most concerned that the copyrighted sales information not be released in a wholesale fashion.
"We believe we can keep that confidential," he said.
Backers of disclosure claim that full real estate sales disclosure to county assessors would result in more uniformity in setting property taxes.
