Image: East Nashville Historic District, Nashville TN Image Credit: Andrew Jameson / CC
The Tennessee Conservative [By Paula Gomes] –
The majority of homeowners in Davidson County – nearly two-thirds –have been denied changes to their property tax bill after requesting reviews of their reappraisals.
According to the Davidson County Assessor’s Office, of the more than 19,000 informal review requests from homeowners trying to fight the steep increase in their home values, leading to high tax bills, only 6,400 resulted in a change, about 34 percent.
The 2025 reappraisal resulted in a 45 percent median increase in property values across the county according to Assessor Vivan Wilhoite. While state law mandates counties to remain revenue-neutral after a reappraisal, local councils can vote to raise tax rates as the Metro Council did this year.
Ahead of Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s State of the City address on May 1st, disgruntled Nashvillians planned to protest a potential property tax increase.
While O’Connell was making his address, several groups including Americans for Prosperity, the Nashville GOP, and the Nashville Tea Party planned to meet outside the Nashville Public Library.
Pointing to the lack of a cap on annual property tax increases in the state, these organizations wanted city leadership to look at cutting unproductive programs instead of raising taxes on homeowners.
Just a few years ago in 2020, the Metro Council raised property taxes for Davidson County homeowners a historic 34 percent. A citizens group at the time delivered more than 20,000 petition signatures for a referendum to call a special election for residents of Davidson County to weigh in on the tax hike.
The proposed Nashville Taxpayer Protection Act would have repealed the 34 percent increase and limited future property tax increases to 2 percent a year. After a lawsuit was filed by 4 Good Government against the Davidson County Election Commission, Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle ruled that the group’s charter amendment could not be placed on a special election ballot.
Now property owners are saddled with an even higher tax increase, with some neighborhoods like Bellevue, Forest Hills, and Green Hills facing values that have increased over 50 percent.
The median value for a house in the Nashville area was $325,000 four years ago, but is now up to around $474,000.
While O’Connell has said that he wanted to keep tax rates low, he has cited the potential loss of federal funding and its effect on the city’s budget as a factor in raising property tax.
That budget is not delivering quality services, according to Davidson County homeowners who say their tax bills are increasing while they receive subpar city services like poor public schools.
The Metro Board of Equalization has yet to hear another 14,600 formal appeals even as the bills associated with the appeals are due to be paid now.
Nashville businesses are also frustrated by higher property values. Many feel they are valued higher than what they could sell for as the real estate market fluctuates due to slower sales and high interest rates.
Carey Bringle, owner of iconic barbecue restaurant Peg Leg Porker, has seen his property taxes skyrocket since buying his building in the Gulch.
In 2017, the Nashville small, family-run restaurant’s tax bill was less than $10,000. This year the bill is $86,000, an 800 percent increase.
Bringle says that local business owners are getting squeezed, and could find themselves unable to afford to continue to operate in Davidson County.
About the Author: Paula Gomes is a Tennessee resident and reporter for The Tennessee Conservative. You can reach Paula at paula@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
2 Responses
I thank God every night that I’m not in a dimmercrap “ran” city or state. Idiots who vote dimmercrap deserve such. Sad for Republicans trying to stay in business in them.
This is why in 2019 I sold all ten of my properties in Nashville and got the hell out. I am a Nashville native, born and raised- even raised my kids there and they too went to the Crapy Metro school. I saw the writing on the wall 6 years ago at how it had been turning into a smaller version of LA, California. Vivian will always raise the taxes on the white neighborhood and not the black neighborhoods she did it in Inglewood where we lived, but I bought out there in 1998 it was still the hood because my hood Belmont -Waverly became gentrified and I couldn’t afford my hood anymore, so I had to go deeper in the hoods of Nashville.
Then in 2012 I sold my home of 14years because my taxes kept going up 100 a year. That might not sound like much but over time it makes owning a home difficult. My kids can’t afford to own or rent in the neighborhood they grew up in .
Your home should never have a property tax on it. You pay taxes on it when you buy it, when you sell it, so you never really own it because you don’t pay those taxes then the government will take it. We went to war over a 2% tax on tea, why are we not up in arms over this? Plus, the money they claim they collect is for the schools and the police, yet are kids can’t read past a 3rd grade level and cops never show when you call, they show up to clean up the crime scene. So where is this money going?