For the first time I’ve owed property throughout my life, the value of that property decreased in valuation from a reassessment.

The assessments of our property in Floyd County went down — not a lot but enough to raise eyebrows at our house this year.

Wingate and Associates, the company reassessing real estate for the county this year, mailed their valuations Friday of last week.

Ours arrived Saturday but, because of a busy weekend schedule, I did not get a chance to review it until Monday.

Overall, the Wingate folks told the Board of Supervisors last week, property values went up seven tenths of one percent in the county.  Some properties went up, some went down.  Ours went down.

When we bought our home and property in 2004, we paid less than the then current assessment.  At that time, property prices were going up in the county.  In a few years, with the world-wide recession in full bloom, for sale signs appeared more and more often and the asking prices of property decreased.

Yet our property went up in one reassessment and stayed the same in the next.  This time, it went down.

This comes at a time when a tax increase is all but certain from the Board of Supervisors next year.  A readjustment in tax rates is on the table.

So a drop in the value of our property may be welcome.

That was a sharp contrast of our 23 years of ownership of a two-bedroom condo in a high rise in Arlington County during our time in the Washington, DC, area.  Our assessments went up more than 400 percent during that time.

In Alton, Illinois, we sold our house in the early 80s for more than twice what we paid for it 10 years earlier.

Now, in some areas of the country, the values of properties have dropped less than what many homeowners owe in mortgages.

The times, they are a-changin’ and they ain’t always changing for the better.