9/23 Expressions - Properties Tax Assessment Issue

I called the local county tax assessor earlier this month - concerned that I had not received notification of my new assessment amounts, thus, what my tax bill would be.  She stated that they only send notifications out if the property value increases.  Well, I went on line last night, and the 2012 values have been posted.  My primary residence stayed the same - of course it went down last year.  My local rental properties dropped in value also - one almost $10K and the other about $5K.  And since I am not planning to sell, it is good news for me that assessors are adjusting "accordingly" - and not for tax revenues only - so, my tax bill should drop a bit.  Our rental property in the next county over - stayed the same.  Our beach properties - the condo, went up, and sand-lot went down.   We are still awaiting to hear from the tax assessor about our foreclosure property - they did concede to a reduction - but, we believe it is double the amount they conceded to - or more.  So, in a year where people are complaining (me included) about increases in prices - at least we will pay less property tax this year.  What we lost in property values, we gained in stock & mutual fund investments in our retirement and personal accounts.  We are sure hoping they hold out, because it is a nice psychological boost since we would like to retire sooner, rather than later.  I guess this is a good lesson in asset allocation for us.  We are glad that we went ultra conservative, and now just conservative in 2/3's of our retirement allocation.  We had not been market timers in the past, but, we are certainly less than 5 years from retiring, and even closer to possibly paying for college tuition and expenses.  Therefore, while we feel that overall, the market was "good" to us, we surely don't want to experience any sharp movements (down anyway) in the next 5 years.