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Fairfax County VA has been lowering assessments.

Zillow is probably the best source that pretty much covers all urban/suburban areas. They are not completely accurate, but they are good for giving you a good idea. More than you'll likely get anywhere else.

In WV:

The assessment for tax purposes is supposed to be 60% of the actual value. This is a tax break that dates back to Gov. Underwood that they never have been able to repeal.

The amount of the tax assessment is NOT ADMISSABLE in court in litigation about eminant domain.

So do not worry and enjoy paying less taxes.

Your assessed value has no bearing on the true market value of the property, only its value in relationship to other properties in the taxing authority's jurisdiction. Your taxes could go up or down as a result of the reassessment. It's not just the assessed value that counts, but also the applied millage, with the product of the two determining the tax. The local millage will be adjusted up or down immediately following a reassessment, then adjusted periodically (like annually) thereafter, usually only upwards, until the next assessment. Most taxing authorities will set the new millage so the total tax is "revenue neutral" immediately following the reassessments. (But of course that never lasts!) So at that point the total property tax revenue is unchanged, but some property owners pay more and some less, and many are about the same - or at least that's the story line!

In our local area the last reassessment about 10 years ago set the value of all properties for tax purposes at 50% of the market value (as determined by the assessors) at the time. The actual percentage is completely arbitrary. Those assessed values will remain constant until the next complete reassessment, which will probably be in about 15 more years. In theory, significant improvements or changes made to a property, like adding a garage or new addition, will cause a reassessment for that one property in the interim; those are triggered by building or zoniing permits.

The only real concern you might have at this point is how your property was assessed. i.e., was the correct formula applied, how does it compare to essentially identical properties, etc.? Assessed values are public record, and you should have access to the details of the assessment of your own property to make the comparison. You should also be concerned about how your property is currently zoned. If zoned commercial, for instance, you could be paying a much higher tax than for the same property that's zoned residential. But of course a commercial property has a much higher potential value as well. Incidentally, for taxation purposes the age and condition of the house, landscaping, improvements like the OP listed, etc., have little bearing on the assessed value. The formulas consider total square footage, number of rooms, garage or not, lot size, etc. as the major factors. (All those improvements can factor greatly into the appraised value of course, but not so much if at all in the assessed value.)

Period reassessments of all properties within a taxing jurisdiction are good. They help level the field so we are all paying fair amounts of property tax. But they also cost considerable taxpayer money to be performed, so they should only be done when a considerable imbalance is evident...

I know that values of houses in general in the WV/Eastern KY area have not gone down much if any for the most part because they never had the upswing that other areas had over the last 15 years. What part of Charleston do you live in? I didn't know there was any plans to put a strip mall in, other than the old Kanawha City mall.

In Hamilton Co, OH in a regular ol' neighborhood my home value dropped 10% this year even after improvements. A couple of my neighbors' houses went down as much as 25% in assessed value. To be brutally honest, the assessed values are NOW what I consider to be fair. The county assessed value of my house in now exactly what I paid for it 18 months ago. Not the inflated price they had, or the super-inflated price the seller had originally. (That's one of the reasons the property was vacant for 18 months before I bought the place)

My house was IMHO overvalued before. When I see these "flip" shows with people buying a 1500 foot bungalow-style home for a quarter million and selling for $350,000 after cleaning the house, I am amazed how ANYONE can afford to buy a house when they are triple what any sane person should consider paying for that property! But that's another argument.