By Lynn A. Gladieux, Special to The Mercury

READING -- Reduced real estate sales following the burst of the housing bubble and explosion of the national mortgage crisis is affecting Berks County property transfers.

Berks County Recorder of Deeds Fred Sheeler told the county commissioners that property transfers have fallen off by at least 32 percent.

Sheeler estimated there were about $1 billion worth of taxable property sales in 2008, down 32 percent from 2007 and 39 percent from 2006, meaning that municipal and school tax collections have seriously dropped off.

"In the past two years there have been $685 million in real estate transfers that didn't occur. What that means to the taxpayer is that the municipal and school tax collections have dropped from $22.7 million in 2006 to $20.7 million in 2007 to $13.6 million this year," Sheeler said.

Taxes are collected each time a property is transferred or sold. The state collects 1 percent of the sale price, the township receives 0.5 percent and schools collect 0.5 percent. The only exception is the City of Reading, where the municipal transfer tax is 3.5 percent. This tax money goes directly into the coffers of the state, local municipalities and schools.

Berks County receives a commission for each property transferred, which is 1 percent of the state tax collected and 2 percent of both the municipal and school taxes. This commission is passed on directly to the county.

The slowdown in the housing market means that both taxes and commissions are not being collected and are not being put into the budgets of state or county governments.

"Just this year to date we are down $7 million to pass along to the schools and boroughs. It's going to impact everybody," Sheeler said.

Like other county department heads, Sheeler is not filling vacant positions within his department, and has streamlined his operations in spite of the work load being high. He said that in spite of deed recordings being down about 20 percent this year from last, the overall number of document filings is down only about 14 to 15 percent.

Sheeler said he hopes the slumped housing market and economic environment rebounds in the near future, but he is pragmatic.

"Based on the international financial picture, it's going to take awhile," he said.