The stagnant real estate market and slow-recovering economy again this year have flattened Westchester County mortgage tax receipts, a major revenue source for the county that has languished in the doldrums for three years.
County Clerk Timothy C. Idoni recently released revenue figures for the first half of 2011 that show a 1.73-percent increase in mortgage tax receipts over the same period last year.
The county received $6,590,654 in taxes on mortgage transactions through June, putting it on target to reach its conservative projection of $13.5 million in mortgage tax revenue by the end of 2011. Idoni, though, noted that projected total is only about one-third of the $39,836,895 collected in 2005 at the peak of the real estate market.
“There doesn”™t appear to be any trends indicating things will get better soon,” the county clerk said in a press release.
The county”™s mortgage tax receipts dropped approximately $20.56 million, or nearly 52 percent, from the real estate market”™s peak in 2005 to the end of 2008 and the start of the recession. The county clerk”™s office in 2008 collected $19,279,696 in mortgage taxes.
In 2009, as housing sales stalled and banks tightened lending on both home and commercial mortgages, mortgage tax receipts in Westchester plummeted to $12,425,216, an approximately 36 percent decrease from the previous year.
The county”™s real estate market rebounded slightly in 2010, when the county collected $12,969,204, a 4.2 percent increase from 2009. Receipts in 2010, though still were down more than 32 percent from 2008 and approximately $26.9 million or 67 percent from their peak in 2005.
Idoni said overall revenue in the clerk”™s land records department is on an upturn this year. That appears to be due to a rise in the number of mortgage consolidations, extensions and modifications on properties throughout the county, he said.
“This is a natural reaction to the contraction of the real estate market. Financial institutions and their customers are trying to get loans under control while interest rates are low,” Idoni said.
While those filings generate limited revenue for the county in recording fees, Idoni said, often no mortgage tax is due as no additional amounts have been borrowed.
