If you own real estate in Rockingham County, you likely received an notice of the updated real estate tax assessment for your property sometime in the past week... or it will hit your mailbox soon.

Plenty of property owners have been shocked to see their 2026 reassessment notice and note that the assessment of their property has increased by 20% or more.

How could it be!?  Home values certainly did not increase by 20% between 2025 and 2026!?!  Right??

Right!

Here's what you might have forgotten... which would be understandable, as you would probably only think about it once every four years...

Rockingham County reassesses real estate every four years... not every year.

So, the last time Rockingham County adjusted the assessed value of your home was back in 2022... which was likely loosely based on 2021 sales data.

This time, the 2026 reassessment would be loosely based on 2025 sales data.

Which... brings me to the graph above.

In 2021 (the main source data for 2022 reassessments) the median sales price in Rockingham County was $281,250.

In 2025 (the main source data for 2025 reassessments) the median sales price in Rockingham County was $355,000.

As such, since sales prices of homes in Rockingham County increased by 26% over that four year period, you probably shouldn't be too surprised if your real estate tax assessment increased by 15%, 20%, 25% or possibly even 30%.

  

And now... we'll all promptly forget about the every-four-year aspect of the Rockingham County real estate assessments... until the next time our real estate assessment changes... in 2030.  See you then!