I talked to the county office just now (and going through the numbers and typing this) and they immediately emailed the assessment calculation back. I didn't go into details about asking for an appeal--- I just figured I'd start with the current numbers. It seems a bit skewed----
$25,000 land (3/4 acre rural)
$40,300 garage (1,440 sq ft detached, built 2006, computes to $28/sqft)
$47,100 house (728 sq ft, full basement, built 1950, computes to $65/sqft)
$500 shed (wood shed)
$112,900 total assessed value
Some notes---
1) The house is listed as heated by wood stove, which deducted $1,400 from the value, though $1,380 was added in value because its considered to have a fireplace. Interesting!
2) We broke through to an exterior storage room during renovations, so that should add about 100 sq ft to the living space. Total sq ft would go from 728 to about 828.
3) I am quite proud of my garage, but its amazing that its supposedly worth almost as much as the house.
4) I can follow the house value calculations as it is broken down by component. It goes like this--- house $48,500, basement $14,000, with adjustments totals $65,700, plus exterior porch makes $74,400, then given quality class D-5 pulled it to $70,670. So I thought the final adjusted house value would have been $70,670, but in the next section, it gives depreciation at 42% and then a market adjustment of 115%. That gets the total value to $47,100 (math here--- 70,670*(1-.42)*1.15)
I'm thinking there's room for improvement on getting the house $/sqft up to a more realistic level. $65 to $90 seems reasonable for a recently renovated space, plus the inclusion of the extra 100 sq ft of living space in the house. That would bring the house portion from $47,100 to $74,500. Total assessed value for the property would go to $140,000.