Homeowner property taxes on Vashon are down this year — except waterfronts

Most Vashon homeowners will pay less property tax in 2025 than they did in 2024.

Most Vashon homeowners will pay less property tax in 2025 than they did in 2024.

You read that right. Taxes on three-quarters of all Vashon houses — all homes that aren’t on the water — will be down about 1.5% from a year ago.

Owners of waterfront homes aren’t so fortunate. Their property tax bills will go up more than 5%.

The year-over-year changes were calculated using data from the King County Assessor’s Office, including a report on 2025 levy rates the office released last week. Individual property tax bills will be mailed and posted online Feb. 14.

Taxes on mobile homes and undeveloped land will increase, but only marginally — well under 1%.

Why will most Vashon homeowners get a small tax cut? As is always the case with property taxes, it’s complicated.

One factor: The assessed value of non-waterfront homes on Vashon increased less than 1%, a smaller bump than many other properties both on-island and off. That means owners of those landlocked island homes are shouldering less of the collective tax burden.

Another factor: This wasn’t a big year for new tax levies, or big increases in most existing ones. Three of the 29 levies that were collected on Vashon in 2024 expired and aren’t being collected in 2025.

Property taxes are calculated using two variables. One is a property’s assessed value. The Assessor’s office revalues all 700,000 properties in the county each year using three years’ worth of sales data.

While Vashon’s most recent revaluation increased the assessed value of non-waterfront homes only a hair, the taxable value of waterfront homes jumped 8%.

The other variable is the total rate per $1,000 of assessed value of all the tax levies collected in a community. On Vashon, that total rate for 2025 is $10.39, down from $10.66 last year.

For owners of non-waterfront homes, that lower rate, when coupled with assessed values that barely budged, means a lower tax bill. Not so for owners of waterfront residences.

Take the case of two homes on Maury Island — one on the water, one not — whose assessed values last year were nearly identical: $826,000 for the waterfront home. $833,000 for the non-waterfront one. Their tax bills also were almost the same: $8,801 and $8,876.

That 8% increase in the assessed value of waterfront homes pushed the Maury beachfront home’s assessed value up to $892,000. The owners’ tax bill this year will be about $9,268, a $467 increase.

The non-waterfront home’s assessed value rose only $6,000, to $839,000. Its owners’ 2025 bill will be about $158 less than last year.

This year’s tax bills include one new levy, a 10 cents per $1,000 assessment the County Council approved in December to fund Harborview Medical Center and public health clinics. Tax bills also reflect Vashon voters’ approval in February 2024 of a renewed, higher Vashon Island School District four-year levy for capital and technology projects.

But small county levies that funded a new emergency radio network and the Automated Fingerprint Identification System expired. So did a small levy the King County Library System had been collecting for 20 years to pay off bonds that funded new, expanded or remodeled libraries, including Vashon’s.

Vashon voters in 2023 approved a measure that increased Vashon Island Fire & Rescue’s levy rate for 2024 to $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed value – the maximum state law allows. The measure also allowed the district to increase its levy collections by an additional 6% each year through 2029.

But VIFR couldn’t take the full 6% this year, because that would have exceeded the $1.50 ceiling. That limit helped keep island property taxes lower.

So did the relatively small increases in residential assessed values on Vashon in comparison with many other parts of King County. One example: The King County Road District levy, which is collected only in unincorporated areas and funds road and bridge construction and maintenance.

Road District levy collections are up 1% this year, the maximum the law allows. But Vashon homeowners, even those on the waterfront, will pay less tax for roads than in 2024.

That’s because the assessed value of many mainland unincorporated areas increased more than Vashon did. Home values in areas such as the Enumclaw Plateau, Bear Creek and Cottage Lake jumped 14% or more. Those homeowners, consequently, are picking up a proportionally greater share of the tab for county roads.

Property tax bills also include three county fees — for surface water management, noxious weed control and the King County Conservation District — that are not based on assessed value. The surface water management fee is by far the largest; for residential properties it’s $361 this year, up from $323 in 2024.

Lower-income senior, disabled and disabled-veteran Vashon homeowners who have received property-tax exemptions will pay a total levy rate of about $6.51 per $1,000 of assessed value in 2025, according to the Assessor’s office. That’s about 37% less than the $10.39 rate other homeowners are paying.

Property owners can find more property-related information by visiting the eReal Property Search at kingcounty.gov/assessor or by calling 206-296-7300.

Homeowners can find out about programs for property tax relief by visiting tinyurl.com/KingCountyTaxRelief.

Eric Pryne is a retired Seattle Times journalist.