Across Newport home values have increased dramatically. Here's where they've raised the most
NEWPORT – Several Newporters opened their mail to find their homes reassessed for jaw-dropping amounts. Citywide, properties experienced a median property value increase of 52% in just three years, when the last assessment was done.
Since then, City Hall has been fielding calls from concerned property owners, worried their taxes will increase to unaffordable levels. However, the City of Newport has been working to assuage residents' concerns, informing residents that they should not use current tax rates to estimate their future tax bills, as the Rhode Island General Laws prohibit the tax levy from increasing more than 4% year over year. Additionally, tax rates are established during the city’s budget development process, which is still a few months away.
In light of the new reassessment, The Newport Daily News obtained the raw data to figure out who, and what areas, were hit the hardest by these new assessments. Here is what we found.
Top 10 properties with the largest increases in value
Many properties with the largest percent increase in value were individual condominium units within recently renovated buildings that were converted into condos or newly constructed homes. To simplify the list, we have grouped the individual units within the same building together.
Clarke Street Meeting House Condominiums, 15 Clarke St. Units 13A and 13BUnit 13A increased by 14868% ($1,600 to $239,500)Unit 13B increased by 14868% ($1,600 to $239,500)
Daleswell Condominiums, 360 Gibbs Ave. Units 3G and 4GUnit 3G increased by 952.63% ($3,800 to $40,000)Unit 4G increased by 939.58% ($4,800 to $49,900)
Commercial Condominium, 5 1/2-17 Vicksburg P, Unit 1 and Unit 2Unit 1 increased by 601.78% ($45,000 to $315,800)Unit 2 increased by 257.54% ($78,200 to $279,600)
Gardiner House Hotel (Built 2022), 24 Lee’s WharfIncreased by 372% ($1,900,000 to $8,968,000)
24 Parker Ave (Built 2023)Increased by 360.82% ($855,600 to $3,942,800)
199 Spring St. Increased by 339.43% ($433,700 to $1,905,800)
0 Marissa Way (future home of Island Moving Company dance school)Increased by 332.39% ($144,800 to $626,100)
37 Memorial Blvd. (formerly Jimmy’s Saloon and Waterbrothers, future hotel)Increased by 292.80% ($603,900 to $2,372,100)
Daleswell Condominiums, 360 Gibbs Ave., Units 1G and 2GUnit 1G increased by 289.47% ($13,300 to $51,800)Unit 2G increased by 288.04% ($9,200 to $35,700)
11 Shields St. (built 2023)Increased by 256.73% ($782,600 to $2,791,800)
Top five neighborhoods with the biggest increases in value
Newport’s properties are categorized into 66 groups with special “neighborhood” codes. They classify similar types of properties. This means that while several properties in a tax assessor’s “neighborhood code” can be in different locations, they are similar enough to group together. Many of the properties in a neighborhood code are in the same location.
Many of the neighborhood codes with the largest increases in value are those that lump together various condominiums around town. For example, the neighborhood code with the second largest median percent increase in value, CT05, includes condos on Houston Avenue and Clinton Avenue in the Fifth Ward as well as Van Zandt Avenue and Bliss Road near Broadway. In fact, three of the top five codes would be condominium-related if these codes were included. To get a better sense of what is going on with the city’s property values geographically, these codes have been removed from the list.
These are loose categories and not meant to accurately represent every property identified in each neighborhood code. Additionally, this list uses median property value and median percent increase, rather than averages. While averages can provide a good understanding of the full scope of the data, they get skewed by large and small outliers. By using the median of these values instead, we can see what property values and changes in value most people experienced without those large and small numbers impacting the score as much.
Ocean Avenue Mansions and Salve Regina properties (1250)
This neighborhood code encompasses several of Newport’s most expensive homes, as well as properties owned by Salve Regina University. After the reassessment, these properties now have a median home value of $3.14 million.
The median increase in property value in this area over the past three years was 85%, meaning several properties saw their homes increase in value by a million dollars and some change. The home that saw the highest value increase was 40 Castle Hill Ave., a massive single-family home owned by Ross Sinclair and Diane Kazarian of Toronto, Canada, which went from being worth $2.042 million to $5.24 million in the past three years.
Of the properties categorized as 1250 and owned by Salve Regina College, Salve Regina University or SRU Holdings LLC, the field on the corner of Webster Street and Lawrence Avenue increased in value the most, from $786,500 to $1.64 million, more than double its original value.
Renovations, flipped homes and new construction around Memorial Boulevard and Ocean Avenue (1100)
This code includes several properties on streets like Annandale Road, Merton Road and Dresser as well as homes on Coggeshall and Casey Street in the Third Ward that were recently purchased in either 2022 or 2023, many of whom have residential addresses in other states. The median property value percent increase for these new-ish Newporters was 64%, with a median home price at $1.25 million.
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The home with the largest percent increase was 3 Casey Ave., a single-family home built in 2020 and purchased by Kelvin Ng of Boston, Massachusetts, in 2023. His property increased in value by 266% during this reassessment.
The code also includes the Chanler at Cliff Walk, which nearly doubled in value over the past three years, going from $6.19 million to $12 million.
Historic homes on Kay Street and Farewell Street (0600)
These properties, almost entirely on Kay Street and Farewell Street and including nearby properties on White Street, Edward Street and Appleby Street, are primarily colonial and historic homes with median values of around $996,500, with a median percent increase in value of 63% over the past three years.
The property with the largest increase in this category was 39 Kay St., on the corner of Kay and Pell, which was reassessed from $980,000 to over $2.4 million. It was purchased in September 2023 by Newporters Garrett and Jacqueline Benton.
The code also includes several cemeteries, including Newport’s Common Burial Ground and Island Cemetery and the Jewish Cemetery off Kay Street.
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Renovated mid-century homes between Bliss Road and Kay Street. (0700)
Like their neighbors in the previous category, properties on Hazard Street, Eustis Avenue, Xavier Terrace and Whitewell Avenue, among others, saw a median property value percent increase of 63%. However, while some of these homes may be colonial, most with the largest property value increases are homes that were originally built in the 1950s and 60s but recently received a facelift of some kind and were sold between 2020 and 2023. The largest percent increase in property value, however, was 12 Tompkins Court, a new single-family built in 2022 and owned by Adam Zaff and Tiana Brady of Marina Del Rey, California.
The median home value around here is $756,100.
Historic homes around Sherman Street and Upper Thames (0900)
This category includes several properties on Sherman Street, Division Street and Thames Street. The median percent increase in property value was 63%, like the two categories before it on this list. 13 Sherman Street, a multifamily home built in 1850 and sold in 2023 to Jared and Kellie Zentz, experienced the highest percent increase of this group, going from $630,400 to $1.66 million over the past three years.
With a median property value in this neighborhood code of $1.2 million, this code also includes many properties owned by Newport Restoration Foundation, the organization founded by Doris Duke dedicated to preserving colonial homes in Newport. The 20 properties the foundation owns in this category have a median value of $1.76 million.
This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Newport home values see large increases in these neighborhoods
