The Passaic County market
Passaic County is effectively two markets that happen to share a county line.
The eastern end — Paterson and the boroughs around it — is dense two-to-four family, mixed-use and converted industrial. Those are income properties, and the rent roll on an older building has to be tested against what the units would actually re-let for.
Unit legality is the recurring problem in that stock. A converted basement or attic that is not on the certificate of occupancy generally cannot be given income credit, whatever it currently collects.
Western Passaic is the opposite question. West Milford, Ringwood and Bloomingdale sit largely within the Highlands Preservation Area, where what can be built on a parcel is restricted by regulation rather than by the market.
That restriction is a land value fact. Where a lot could once support a subdivision and now cannot, the excess acreage does not contribute what an unadjusted price-per-acre would suggest.
Between the two, Wayne and Clifton are conventional suburban markets — except for Pines Lake and Packanack Lake, where private association membership and lake rights are priced and have to be matched, not averaged.
Appealing a Passaic County assessment
Appeals are filed with the Passaic County Board of Taxation. The filing deadline is April 1, moving to May 1 in any municipality that implemented a revaluation or reassessment for the tax year.
The appraisal supporting the appeal needs an effective date of October 1 of the pre-tax year — not today's date — and the board applies the Chapter 123 Common Level Range, which can mean no reduction even where the property is worth less than its assessment. How the Chapter 123 test actually works .
Every Passaic County municipality has its own certified average ratio, and it decides the outcome before any appraisal is commissioned. The Chapter 123 calculator works out where a given assessment lands — including whether an appeal would raise it.
Municipalities served in Passaic County
Paterson · Clifton · Passaic · Wayne · West Milford · Wanaque · Pompton Lakes · Hawthorne · North Haledon · Prospect Park · Haledon · Totowa · Little Falls · Woodland Park · Ringwood · Bloomingdale · West Paterson