Appraisal up, but at least land worth more now

According to the 2010 tax reappraisal, our 1-acre lakefront lot is valued at $200,000, twice its value five years ago; our house is valued at $100,000 more.
To understand the method used for evaluating lakefront land, we had a helpful and informative meeting with our tax assessor, Teresa Kirkham.
Here are some comments that may help others regarding their lakefront reappraisal values.
She gave us a list of 58 lakefront property sales in 2008 and 2009. One hundred qualified-sale (no duress) properties were used in the appraisals, but usually 200 are used.
My thought is that the smaller data base consisted of more affluent buyers of more expensive properties, giving an upward bias to the lakefront sales.
The speculative fever for lake properties, while declining, was also a factor.
Properties near a lot are used where possible. Some 2010 sales were also used. More than 36,000 parcels are reappraised. A similar process is used for housing reappraisal.
Additional information is available at www.roaneassessor.com. The state maintains the tax records at www.assessment.state.tn.us/. You can see the property lines and aerial view here also. Some for sale lake homes are at http://lakehouse.com/ .
By the way, that $200,000 per acre is about $4.60 per square foot, about the price of upscale carpeting or flooring.
And that increase in house and lot value is not all real but reduced by inflation of the dollar, a factor of 2.6 percent or so since our house was built 31 years ago (it takes $2.60 now to buy what a dollar would buy then).
This means our house is worth about the same as built but valued in inflated dollars today.
The land is worth about fourtimes more in real terms since then, so that is a real gain.
We will have to live with the appraisals for another five years.
I do notice more real estate ads stating “reduced” and “under appraisal” as sellers become more realistic in their asking prices.
Walter Carow
Kingston