Reassessment of Lycoming County properties is now underway — here’s what happens
The property reassessment approved by the Lycoming County commissioners is underway in some area municipalities as employees of Tyler Technologies Inc., the firm hired for nearly $3.5 million to do the work, begin the second phase of the process — collecting data.
According to Steve Wise, senior project supervisor for Tyler, this phase of the reassessment runs through March of 2026. That is followed by the data analysis and review stage which starts some time in 2025 and goes through the summer of 2027.
Once the preliminary notice is mailed out, property owners will have an opportunity to file informal appeals, which will be handled by Tyler. New assessments would be in effect for the 2028 tax year.
Beginning next month, the group will be conducting 8 to 10 informational presentations throughout the county where residents will have the opportunity to have any questions and concerns about the reassessment process answered. The first presentation will be at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 12, at the Jersey Shore Area Middle School, 601 Thompson St., Jersey Shore.
In all, there are over 54,000 parcels in the county including commercial improved, residential improved, exempt, industrial and all land. The term “improved” refers to a property that has a structure on it.
“There’s not a parcel in the county that we’re not going to look at and we’re not going to touch over the course of that three-year time frame,” Wise said.
What this means for area property owners is that at some point they will be visited by a Tyler employee, who will be properly identified both with a yellow vest with the Tyler name on it and a Lycoming County-issued photo ID badge.
Data collectors have been hired within the county area and trained in the field.
“We also do a list of all the data collectors that are in the field. They have their vehicle identification numbers, the year, make and model,” Wise said.
There will also be pictures of the data collectors on Tyler’s website that show who’s in the field and the kind of vehicle they drive. Notification is also given to any municipality about one to two weeks before they begin in that area.
The county’s Chief Assessor Brooke Wright said area police departments and the State Police have been notified that the data collectors are working in the county.
“We have a point of contact for them, too, in the 911 Emergency Center and the Sheriff’s Office,” Wright said.
At the moment, there are three people in the field and four full-time and up to four part-time employees are slated to be hired. They also have various office staff that do the data entry once the field work is done. ‘
“Once the data is collected, they’ll enter all the changes and everything into the county’s appraisal system,” Wise said.
When the data collector comes to a property, if the owner is home they will be asked a series of questions about the interior of the home.
Questions asked residential property owners include: the number of bedrooms, bathrooms and total rooms in the home; what type of heating system and fuel is used; does it have central air conditioning; what level of finish does the basement have; has there been any recent remodeling; and is there anything else you would like them to know about the property.
Exterior measurements and an updated photograph of the front of each property will be taken during the data collection phase. A date stamp is added to the photos to show when the parcel was inspected.
“There’s a few purposes for these. One is for the documentation aspect of it-to show that we visited every property. The other thing is, it helps us in the review process too. Having a good picture on file just aids in the accuracy of the review,” Wise said.
Even beyond the assessment, according to Mary Noldy, appraisal services regional manager with Tyler Technologies, the photos are then made available to local law enforcement and other departments in the county so that they also can verify the properties.
The average time the process takes is about five to seven minutes in an urban area where the buildings are closer together and longer in rural areas where there may be larger properties and more buildings. Wise stressed that the data collectors do not enter the buildings.
If the owner is not home, the data collector leaves a door hanger which contains questions to be answered and then returned to the address on the back of the mailer. They also give everybody a brochure of frequently asked questions.
“The door hanger lets them know when we were there and then that gives them the opportunity to allow them to verify with us the information that they have about their house,” Wise said.
He indicated that they have had a good return of door hangers in the Watson and Porter township areas where the data collectors are currently working.
“We’ll take that information, we’ll compare that with what we have, and then we’ll make adjustments based on any changes.
“If in the record, we have someone down as a four bedroom two and a half bath, and they have a three bedroom, two bath, or maybe we have them as a finished basement, and the basement is not finished,” he said.
He noted that on rare occasions, if a property owner has notified the county that they want to be there when the inspection occurs, an appointment can be scheduled.
Once the data is collected, it is compiled onto a data mailer. Each one is based on the information that is currently on file and what was captured on the property. These are sent to every property owner where there is a dwelling, probably beginning late next month for the properties in the areas where the data collectors are currently working.
“The property owner needs to take the opportunity to review the data that we selected, and they want to make notes of any kind of discrepancies and to have those corrected,” Wise said.
“We want the property owners to be involved in the process. We want the property owners to be involved in the reassessment. There’s certain ways that we can do that. And one of the big things is to look for this in the mail, fill it out, if you have anything, and send it in. This is to ensure accuracy and our quality assessment. It should be signed and returned to the assessor’s office if any of the information needs to be corrected,” he added.
Wise explained that there are several different statistical characteristics that go into determining the overall valuation of a property, such as total square footage, condition, the location, the number of stories and any kind of improvements.
For income producing properties, an income and expense survey is done. These will be mailed out in late May, 2026
“Any property we would deem an income-producing property is going to get one of these. It’s an income and expense survey. We’re going to request three years of relevant income and expense data. There’s instructions that are going to be in the surveys on how they can fill those out. Any information that we collect is strictly confidential. By law we have to, we have a records keeping rule that we have to keep everything confidential,” he said.
“Once again, it gives the commercial property owners out there the opportunity to complete and return the survey to the best of their ability or knowledge,” he said.
Again he stressed the importance of accurate and completed survey information along with the compilation of commercial market reports as a source of information used in determining the final commercial assessment.
Information that is needed for commercial properties includes such things as how many total units they have, what the unit configuration and breakdown is, how many one bedrooms, two bedrooms, three bedrooms, they have, any kind of amenities that they would provide, such as laundry service, fitness area to the tenants, the occupancy percent, what the current rents are, lease rates and operating expenses, Wise explained.
Once all the data is collected then comes the analytical phase which is what Tyler calls the final review and valuation.
“Tyler’s valuation specialist will use collective data to calibrate computerized models specific to the Lycoming market. We identify market areas within the jurisdiction. We develop models relating to different types of property characteristics. We use the models to select comparable sale prices for the subject property…and we select appropriate comparable sales for each subject,” Wise said.
Tyler lists three accepted approaches or methods to arrive at value. The cost approach proves an estimate of the value based on the replacement cost of the improvements, less depreciation plus the value of the land.
The income approach estimates the value by capitalizing on the net operating income of a property and the market or sales approach estimates value by comparing sales of similar properties to the property being appraised.
A sales study will also be conducted for properties sold in the county from the beginning of this year through the duration of the project in 2027. This analysis will be one of the primary tools used to determine the fair market assessed values, according to information from Tyler Technologies.
Although his company is often blamed for raising the value of a property, Wise stressed that it’s the market that dictates the value.
“We interpret the market. The market leads us to the value,” he said.
When property owners receive a notice of the new tentative assessed value starting in Spring 2027, they are encouraged to evaluate whether the assessment appears to be at market value. If they agree that the appraised value is at market value, no further action is required.
“You want to ask yourself the question, could I sell my property for the new tentative value? If the answer is yes, your new tentative value reflects the market value of your property. That’s the goal,” Wise said.
Most property owners, I would think, would have a rough idea of what they felt their property was worth, he said.
However, he encouraged anyone who feels there is a discrepancy with anything to file an appeal.
“The informal hearing process gives an opportunity to the property owner for their voice to be heard,” Wise said.
“It gives us an opportunity to look at it with you and get it right. And that’s the biggest thing that we’re doing here with this. We just want to get it right,” he said.
The notices sent to property owners will contain instructions on how to arrange an informal review of the value with an employee at Tyler.
The purpose of the informal review is to open a discussion to resolve issues and concerns and to review property data for accuracy, collect new information and to correct existing data if necessary.
“It allows the property owner to have a one-on-one meeting with the people that did the work, which is us… I tell people all the time, who know the property better than the person who owns it,” he said.
Wise encourages people seeking informal reviews to bring in data, especially related to sales of similar properties in the area.
“We love data…we’ll consider whatever information that you bring in,” he said.
Ultimately if a property owner feels their concerns have not been met by the informal hearing, they can file a formal appeal with the board of revision.
More information and a detailed timeline for the reassessment can be found at www.tylertech.com/lycoming.
While doing the reassessment, Tyler Technologies will be operating from an office on the sixth floor of Third Street Plaza. They can be contacted by mail at Reassessment Office, c/o Tyler Technologies, 48 W. Third St., Williamsport, PA 17701; by email at LycoPA@tylertech.com; or by phone at 570-567-8221. Office hours are 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.