Whatcom County Transitions To a Annual Real Property Revaluation Program

Per the Whatcom County Assessor Webpage: "The Washington State Dept. of Revenue has approved the Assessor’s Office plan to transition to an Annual Real Property Revaluation program. Beginning in 2010 for property taxes due in 2011, one-sixth of the County will be inspected and all property will be statistically revalu...ed annually." See information/question and answers at link below.

http://www.co.whatcom.wa.us/assessor/index.jsp

WCRER Housing Analysis/ 2008 4th Quarter/ Whatcom County WA

According to the Washington Center for Real Estate Research 2008 Fourth Quarter Housing Analysis; Whatcom County home re-sales were down -15.5% from the previous quarter, and down -36.6% from the fourth quarter in 2007. Statewide home re-sales were down -15.8% from the previous quarter and down -29.1% from the fourth quarter in 2007. Overall building permits in Whatcom County are down -48.7% from the fourth quarter of the previous year, in comparison to the -53.4% reduction statewide. The median re-sale home price in Whatcom County is down to $264,000 (down -7.4% from the fourth quarter in 2007), below the statewide median of $266,700 (down -9.3% from the fourth quarter of 2007). The 2008 fourth quarter Housing Affordability Index (HAI) was 97.9 for Whatcom County, lower than the statewide index of 107.5.

Whatcom County Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Wondering what the zoning, etc. etc. is on a specific property? Whatcom County has excellent GIS capabilitites online
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a system of hardware, software, and procedures set up to support the capture, management, manipulation, analysis, modeling and display of spatially-referenced data for solving complex planning and management problems that involve data which is spatially referenced to the earth.
http://www.co.whatcom.wa.us/pds/planning/gis/index.jsp
Skagit County has the same capabilities w/ IMap:
http://www.skagitcounty.net/GIS/Applications/iMap/asp/iMap.asp