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Property, tax Web sites top 'hits' list

Searches on the property appraiser and tax collector's sites near 20-million.

With just a few clicks you can find out who owns a property, how much they paid for it, how big it is, when the building was built and what the floor plan looks like. One more click pulls up an aerial photograph with the property outlined in red.

For real estate brokers like Pat Sanders, the Pasco County property appraiser's Web site is "nearly as good an invention as the cell phone."

"It's a very useful site," said Sanders, vice president of Camelot Realtors in New Port Richey. "It's something we use on a regular basis."

So do thousands of other professionals, investors and residents. Since the October 1999 launch of the property appraiser's Web site, people have searched for more than 17-million records online: 17,070,735 as of Jan. 7, to be exact.

"That was the number that blew my mind," said Property Appraiser Mike Wells. "My guys just ran a recap for me, and I was amazed by the amount of activity on it."

These days, the Web site sees about 3,750 visitors conducting a total of 30,000 searches a day. The information is available at no cost, at any time of the day or night.

Real estate agents marketing a house can find out how much similar ones sold for. Insurance agents can see whether a home has a fireplace and whether it is made of concrete block or wood.

Potential homebuyers can see if the home sits in a flood zone or has a recorded sinkhole. Reporters can track down information about a land sale. Even nosy neighbors can look up how much the home next door is worth.

And they can get the information without calling or dropping by Wells' office.

"The benefits to the taxpayer go beyond easy access to this information. It allows me to run a more efficient operation," Wells said. "They're not calling us, they're not coming in the office, they're not asking us to print maps."

Tax Collector Mike Olson has a similar success story. Since the launch of his Web site in late 1999, his online records have been searched about 2,238,000 times, he said.

Those records show whether a business has its occupational license, whether homeowners have paid their property taxes or whether a tract has a lien.

"We're in the computer age. It's just expected for people to have this kind of service. You're backward if you don't," Olson said. "Obviously it's a great benefit to have this online. Any time somebody can obtain it in the comfort and privacy of their own home, it means they have the freedom to obtain it whenever they want, plus we don't have to have somebody on the other end of the telephone looking up this information."

Olson also has a 24-hour automated telephone system that can provide information on specific properties or registered cars. Anyone can get property information, but auto tag information is only available under state law to certain users, such as banks and car dealerships.

Altogether the automated phone line handles about 50,000 calls a year, Olson said. "Those are likely calls the office would (otherwise) need clerical staff to take and answer," he said.

There are some limits to the information. Police officers, emergency medical responders and some other employees can have their property records exempted from public view for their own safety. At times, other residents wish their information could remain private, too.

"Sometimes I get grief from a taxpayer about the openness of our records, but it's Florida law," Wells said. "I can't make up the laws. I just work by them."

Wells plans to build on his Web site. Someday it might show three-dimensional pictures of buildings instead of the flat aerials on the Web site now, he said.

"We're excited about technology," he said. "Our only product is information. We don't sell oranges or automobiles. We create a tax roll, and we provide the information."

- Bridget Hall Grumet covers Pasco County government. She can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6244, or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6244. Her e-mail address is hall@sptimes.com

The Pasco County property appraiser's Web site is at http://appraiser.pascogov.com The tax collector's Web site is at http://taxcollector.pascogov.com