Wendy Blake has watched her property taxes nearly double over the past four or five years, and this year's assessment notice added to the pile. Joellen Cofferd, another Perinton homeowner, saw her assessment jump by about $250,000 this year too. Her tax bill went down by roughly $400.
That split outcome is the whole story if you're pricing a home in Perinton right now. The town is in the middle of its first full property revaluation since 2018, and the assessed value sitting on a listing today, the number a lot of buyers use as a shortcut for either market price or future tax bill, is currently one of the least reliable figures in the file.
Why "assessed value" stopped meaning what it used to
Every town in New York is supposed to keep assessments in line with what homes would actually sell for. Perinton hasn't done a townwide update since 2018, so the state assigns the town an equalization rate each year to bridge the gap between old assessments and current market reality. That rate has been sliding for years:
| Year | Equalization Rate |
|---|---|
| 2022 | 93% |
| 2023 | 80% |
| 2024 | 71% |
| 2025 | 62% |
| 2026 | 57% |
A rate that low means the assessed value on most Perinton homes has drifted well below what buyers are actually paying. The town's own assessment office put it plainly: recent sales show property values have shifted unevenly across neighborhoods and property types, which is exactly why a blanket update was overdue. The town mailed preliminary revaluation notices to homeowners in March 2026, and many people opened theirs to find an assessed value that had nearly doubled overnight.
The instinct is to assume a doubled assessment means a doubled tax bill. It doesn't, and understanding why is the part that actually matters if you're deciding between a house in Perinton and a comparable one in a neighboring town.
The tax bill is a pie, not a percentage
Perinton's own materials use a fixed-pie image to explain it: the total tax levy is set by the budgets the town, the school district, the village, the county, and various special districts each adopt. The assessor has no say in how big that pie is. A revaluation only changes how the slices are divided among homeowners.
That is why Cofferd's outcome caught her off guard in a good way: "I was not expecting that. That was a nice surprise for sure." A quarter-million-dollar jump in assessed value and a smaller tax bill sound like they should not coexist, but under a revenue-neutral revaluation they can. Another resident, Heather Staring, had a similar experience: her assessment nearly doubled, from $158,500 to $292,000, while her estimated taxes for next year are actually going down by around $255.
Blake's experience sits on the other side of that same mechanism. Town Supervisor Jenn Townsend has been direct about the mismatch, telling residents that even if an assessment doubles, it does not mean the tax bill will double too, in either direction. Whether a given household lands on the Cofferd and Staring side of that ledger or the Blake side depends on how their new assessed value compares to the townwide average shift, not on the raw dollar jump in the notice.
What this means if you're comparing Perinton to another suburb
If you're weighing a Perinton listing against something in a neighboring Rochester suburb, the assessed value field on any portal listing right now is doing double duty it can't actually perform. It's supposed to signal both what the home might be worth and what you'll owe in taxes. During a revaluation year, it can't reliably do either, because a large share of Perinton's assessed values were set under the old 57% equalization system and are being replaced piece by piece through 2026.
Practically, that means two things for a buyer:
First, don't estimate your future tax bill using the old assessed value and a stale tax rate you found on a general rate table. The town's assessment office is explicit that the real question isn't whether the assessment number changed, it's whether the new assessment reflects what the home would actually sell for today. That's the number worth asking about, not the historical one.
Second, ask the listing agent or the town assessor's office where a specific property landed once its 2026 revaluation notice went out, and whether that figure has since been finalized. That number is the closest thing to a real answer, since it is built off the actual revaluation math rather than a legacy figure from before the update.
The village line adds a second wrinkle
Perinton contains the Village of Fairport, and the tax treatment differs depending on whether an address sits inside or outside that village line. The Town of Perinton's own guide to reading a tax bill notes that villages receive their full sales tax allocation in cash, while properties outside the village, in unincorporated Perinton, receive that same money as a credit that reduces the property tax bill instead. The town's guide walks through one example property outside the village, in the Fairport Central School District, where that sales tax credit shaved roughly $337 off the bill.
That distinction rarely shows up when someone is casually comparing "Fairport" and "Perinton" as if they're interchangeable labels for the same tax situation. A home a few blocks inside the village and a home a few blocks outside it can carry meaningfully different tax mechanics even at similar assessed values, simply because of how each one receives its share of county sales tax revenue.
What to actually do with this before you make an offer
None of this means Perinton is a riskier place to buy. It means the usual shortcut, glance at assessed value, estimate the tax bill, compare to the next town over, doesn't work cleanly this year. A few concrete steps close that gap:
- Ask whether the specific home's assessment reflects the 2026 revaluation or whether the number on the listing predates it.
- Ask the seller or their agent for the current assessed value and any tax impact estimate the town has provided for that property, rather than backing into a number from an old assessed value.
- Confirm whether the address falls inside the Village of Fairport or in unincorporated Perinton, since that affects how sales tax credits apply to the bill.
- If a homeowner still disagrees with their assessment, Perinton's process allows for an informal review with the town assessor, so ask whether that review has already happened for the property and what it concluded.
A few questions we hear often
Does this affect what I'll pay at closing? The revaluation changes the assessed value used to calculate future tax bills. It doesn't change closing costs directly, but it does affect the tax proration a buyer and seller negotiate at the closing table, so it's worth having current figures before you get there.
Is Perinton unusual, or is this happening elsewhere in Monroe County too? Revaluations happen on a town-by-town schedule, and equalization rates decline differently depending on when each town last did a full update. Perinton's situation is specific to its 2018 baseline and the eight years since, so the same math won't automatically apply to a neighboring town on a different cycle.
Where can I find the town's own explanation of this process? The Town of Perinton's assessment office maintains a public revaluation information page that walks through the levy, the equalization rate, and the review process in more detail than any portal summary will.
Assessed value used to be a decent stand-in for both price and tax burden in Perinton. This year it's neither, and the gap closes only as each home works through the revaluation individually. If you're comparing a Perinton listing to anything else on your shortlist, the number worth chasing down isn't the one on the portal page, it's the one on the town's updated notice.
If you're weighing a move into Perinton, Fairport, or anywhere else in Greater Rochester and want help reading a specific listing's numbers before you write an offer, Bonnie Pagano and the team are glad to walk through it with you.
