Walk the model unit at Regan Ridge in Murrysville and the pitch sells itself. Franciosi Construction's newest villa community on Alexander Court gives every unit a private elevator that runs to each floor, a rooftop deck built for sunrise and sunset, and roughly 3,100 gross square feet to customize however the buyer chooses. Listings have priced units from $995,000 to just under $1.3 million, and several noted that only 15 of the community's original 18 units remained available at the time.
Then comes the line that every listing repeats, word for word:
"Individual assessed value, taxes and HOA fee to be determined."
That sentence is not a placeholder. It is the honest answer to a question Westmoreland County cannot answer yet, and it tells you something about buying new construction in Franklin Regional School District that no one puts in the brochure.
What a resale buyer already knows that a Regan Ridge buyer does not
Buy an existing home anywhere in Franklin Regional and you can pull the current assessed value before you ever write an offer. It might be decades out of date, but it exists, it is public, and a lender or agent can use it to estimate your tax bill within a reasonable range before closing.
Buy new construction, and that number simply is not there yet. Westmoreland County's assessment office describes its own job as reviewing every building permit issued by local municipalities, conducting field reviews of new construction, and then setting the assessment and notifying the owner once that review is complete. For a villa still under construction on Alexander Court, that review has not happened. The buyer signs a purchase agreement, closes, and moves in before the county has told them what a third of their annual carrying cost will actually be.
Why Westmoreland's assessments lag so far behind price
The gap exists because Westmoreland County has not conducted a countywide reassessment since 1972. Every assessed value on the books, for new construction and old alike, is still pegged to a base year from more than fifty years ago, a point a Pittsburgh policy economist made plainly in a 2024 op-ed on the county's assessment practices. Pennsylvania bridges that gap statewide with an annually published Common Level Ratio, a multiplier the state's Tax Equalization Board calculates each year from actual sales data so that assessed values from 1972 can be translated into an approximation of today's market value. One appraiser working an appeal in the county found a condo assessed at $26,590 implying a market value near $265,900 once the ratio was applied, even though the highest sale in that same building had only reached $203,000. The ratio is a workaround for a county that stopped updating its numbers over half a century ago, and it is imprecise by design.
That ratio is also the only tool a resale buyer needs to sanity check what they are walking into. A Regan Ridge buyer has no assessed value to run through it yet. The number does not exist until the county's field review catches up to the building.
The bill arrives after the moving trucks leave
When Westmoreland County does complete that review, new construction gets billed through a supplemental assessment rather than folded into the regular tax cycle. The tax is calculated on the difference between the property's prior assessed value, often just raw land, and its new assessed value as a finished home, then prorated for whatever months remain in the current tax year. A common construction guide to the county's process walks through the math: complete a $50,000 improvement in March with a 2.0 percent combined tax rate, and the supplemental bill works out to roughly $750 for the nine months left in that year. Scale that logic to a $1.2 million villa built from the ground up, and the eventual number is not trivial. It also is not knowable at closing, because it depends on a county review that has not yet happened.
Three tax bills, three offices, one blind spot
Franklin Regional buyers do not pay one property tax bill. They pay three, from three separate taxing bodies: Westmoreland County, the Municipality of Murrysville, and Franklin Regional School District itself. Murrysville's own real estate millage is 12.05 mills, applied directly to whatever assessed value the county eventually sets, a figure the municipality publishes on its own tax page. The county and school district layer their own millage rates on top.
A resale buyer can request all three rates and the current assessed value before signing anything, and arrive at a real estimate. A Regan Ridge buyer knows the three rates but not the number those rates get applied to, which means the actual dollar total stays a guess until the supplemental bill lands, potentially well after the first mortgage payment is due.
Why this matters more once you cross a county line
The Harmotto Team's other core districts, Fox Chapel Area and North Allegheny, sit in Allegheny County, which runs its own separate assessment calendar and its own Common Level Ratio entirely apart from Westmoreland's. A 2023 industry analysis of statewide CLR changes noted that Allegheny County was among several counties where the ratio dropped meaningfully that year, a sign that even counties with more recent reassessments than Westmoreland's 1972 baseline still drift from current market value over time and need their own yearly correction.
The practical takeaway for anyone comparing a move between these two counties: the same list price in Fox Chapel and in Murrysville is being measured against two entirely different assessment histories, two different ratios, and two different sets of rules for what a buyer can verify before closing. A relocator weighing a resale home in North Allegheny against new construction in Franklin Regional is not just comparing square footage and school boundaries. They are comparing two different levels of certainty about what they will actually owe the county each year.
What to ask before you sign at Regan Ridge or any new build in Franklin Regional
A few questions turn "to be determined" into a workable estimate rather than a surprise:
- Ask the builder or listing agent whether any comparable finished unit in the community has completed its supplemental assessment yet, and what that number came out to.
- Ask Westmoreland County's assessment office for the current land assessment on the parcel, then apply the published Common Level Ratio to estimate a rough post-construction value.
- Confirm the completion or occupancy date in writing, since that date determines how many months of the current tax year the supplemental bill will be prorated across.
None of this eliminates the uncertainty. It narrows it enough that the first supplemental tax notice does not feel like a surprise bill from a stranger.
A few direct questions
Does the "assessed value to be determined" issue only affect Regan Ridge? No. It affects any new construction in Westmoreland County, since the assessment office only sets a value after its field review of the completed building. Regan Ridge simply makes the language explicit on every listing.
Can I appeal once the supplemental assessment comes in? Yes. Westmoreland County property owners can appeal through the Board of Assessment Appeals, and the annual appeal deadline generally falls around August 1 for the following tax year, though that date is set annually and should be confirmed directly with the county assessment office before filing.
Does buying resale in Franklin Regional avoid this entirely? It avoids the supplemental assessment specifically, since the home already has a set value. It does not mean that value reflects current market pricing, given the county's 1972 base year. A resale buyer still benefits from applying the Common Level Ratio to their target property's current assessment before making an offer.
New construction in Franklin Regional buys square footage, finishes, and a blank slate to customize. It does not buy tax certainty at closing, and that gap is worth pricing into the decision before the offer, not after the first supplemental bill arrives. If you are weighing a Regan Ridge villa against a resale option elsewhere in the district, or comparing Franklin Regional against a district in Allegheny County entirely, The Harmotto Team can walk through the actual numbers with you before you sign anything. Schedule a Consultation to start that conversation.
