House report
523 Mercy St
3 bd · 3 stories · 1,644 sqft · RSA5 · built 2021
Owner-occupied · assessed $422K · sold 4×. On the 500 block of Mercy St.
Reading this house's deeds, permits and assessments…
What to do with this
The record, translated into moves — what a buyer, the owner, and a landlord would each want to check next under Philadelphia's actual rules.
If you’re buying
Today's $1,182/yr reflects a 10-year abatement. It jumps to about $5,909/yr in 2032 — $4,727/yr more. Price the full bill, not the current one.
Single-family rowhouse (the classic Philly row). Converting to a duplex or apartments needs a use variance the zoning board rarely grants — Pennsylvania courts require a physical hardship of the lot itself, and economics alone do not qualify.
If you own it
An abated home cannot also take the Homestead Exemption. From 2032 it can — knocking about $1,400/yr off the full bill.
Interest and penalties keep compounding until a Revenue payment agreement is in place, and a lien is already filed — an owner-occupant agreement also stops the sheriff-sale track.
If you’re the landlord
Renewal requires city tax clearance and zero open L&I violations on the property. A lapsed license suspends the right to collect rent or evict.
Derived from this house's public records and the city's rules as of 2026 (abatement ordinance, Homestead, rental licensing, lead certification, L&I process, excavation protections). Informational only — not legal, tax, or investment advice.
The investment read
How this house has moved and where it's pointed: the city's assessed value (not a listing price) over 12 years, charted against its block; appreciation is that history's pace, and the 5-year figure simply extends it. Yield estimates rent-vs-price from area rents. Ask the analyst below to dig into any number.
Value vs. the block, over time — sales, permits & L&I events marked on the line
Bought for $5K in 2017, built new under a 2019 permit (tax-abated), sold for $405K in 2021.
- 2012 2 L&I violationsL&I
- 2013 L&I violationL&I
- 2015 2 L&I violationsL&I
- 2017 $5KLand buy
- 2018 $25KLand buy
- 2019 New ConstructionPermitZoning/usePermitNew ConstructionPermitNew ConstructionPermitNew ConstructionPermitNew Construction or AdditionsPermit
- 2021 $405KSold
Flags: tax-abated — the bill lags real value · active rental license · $2K back taxes (2004–2016, $454 of it interest & penalties, lien filed). Informational only — not investment advice or a consumer report (FCRA).
The abatement clock
This house pays about $1,182/yr under a 10-year tax abatement. In 2032 the bill reaches its full ~$5,909/yr — a step up of $4,727/yr, 5 assessment years out. Drag the slider.
now: ($422,100 assessed − $337,659 abated) × 1.3998% ≈ $1,182/yr
2032: $422,100 assessed × 1.3998% ≈ $5,909/yr
Flat 100% exemption (pre-2022 program, started 2022), then the cliff — reassessments move both lines. After expiry an owner-occupant can claim the Homestead Exemption (~$1,400/yr off); an abated home can't hold both.
The house, on paper
The city assessor's field record — the physical spec sheet behind the assessed number.
OPA field-assessment attributes. Condition and grade are the assessor's codes, not an inspection.
Run the numbers
What owning 523 Mercy St takes, at your price and your rate. Taxes are this house's actual bill from the city record; rent starts at the area median. Assessed value is not an asking price — set the price slider to the real one.
When this house last sold (2021) a 30-year mortgage ran about 2.96% — Freddie Mac's average that year.
Estimates for orientation, not advice. Assumes a 30-year fixed loan, $1,400/yr insurance, 1% of price/yr maintenance; taxes from this parcel's record (with the abatement toggle above).
Next door: 521 Mercy St · 525 Mercy St
Where this comes from
- Assessment, spec sheet & owner — OPA Property Assessments, Office of Property Assessment
- Sales & deed history — Realty Transfer Tax records, Recorder of Deeds
- Permits, violations & inspections — L&I Property History · Atlas
- Back taxes & liens — Real Estate Tax Balances, Dept. of Revenue
- Zoning appeals — L&I & Zoning Board appeals
- Neighborhood income & rents — US Census ACS 5-year estimates
- Historical mortgage rates — Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, annual averages
- Imagery — Street photo © Google · Aerial © Esri, Maxar
City datasets are fetched live from OpenDataPhilly (phl.carto.com) and cached briefly. Dossiers re-pull automatically — on view once they're a few weeks old, plus a nightly rolling sweep — and citywide benchmarks recompute weekly; the masthead date is when this page's records were last pulled. AI-written passages are generated from these records only and rejected if they state a number the record doesn't hold.
First time here?
This is 523 Mercy St,
on paper.
Built 2021. Every deed, permit, L&I visit, tax bill and sale for this house — plus its whole block.
No signup, no teaser
The whole record is free.
Who owns what, what they paid, what they built, what they owe. Scroll and it's all here — the paid part is not the data.
Three taps, you're oriented
What to catch on the way down.
On the way down: the story of the house, its paper trail drawn on the value chart, and run-the-numbers, a calculator seeded with this house's actual tax bill.
Official city record ↗ · L&I history ↗ · See the whole block · Download this record (JSON)