Over the last two years, South Florida home prices have been in a tailspin, plunging by double-digit rates.

So how did the value of Diane Jacobs' modest rental home in North Miami jump by 7 percent -- from $258,709 to $276,678?

The question is flummoxing a multitude of second-home owners and investors who don't enjoy the benefits of homestead exemptions and tax breaks under Save Our Homes. Thousands have seen their assessed values rise, defying the expectations of the tax relief a declining market could bring.

''I just couldn't believe it when I got it in the mail,'' lamented Jacobs, 57, referring to her estimated-tax notice. The home's higher assessed value raises her bill by $373, to $5,615.

The confusion lies in the oddball market of 2007, in which home prices went from red hot to almost frozen -- and not in all parts of town at once.

The law requires appraisers to value all homes as of Jan. 1. For the most part, they compute values by analyzing sales of comparable properties over the prior 12 months.

In 2007, home sales slowed considerably and, in many areas, happened only early in the year. Back then, prices had not yet begun to slip in some neighborhoods and condo buildings.

''Most areas saw a decline [in value],'' said Marcus Saiz de la Mora, property appraiser for Miami-Dade County. ``But for a lot of properties, the decline wasn't prevalent enough to indicate a reduction in the assessment, and some areas indicated still a slight increase in value over the previous year.''

What's more, the burgeoning foreclosures that would be expected to depress home prices aren't counted in appraisers' analyses.

80,000 HOMES

All that means higher tax assessments this year for about 80,000 homes among some 470,000 residential properties that did not qualify for homestead exemptions in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. For another few thousand homes, values remained virtually flat. The vast majority, however, saw decreases. For homesteaded owners, assessment increases are capped at 3 percent annually by Save Our Homes and generally rise until reaching market value. For owners of second homes, investors and landlords, however, the taxable values shift in tandem with prevailing home prices.

The system, meant to protect primary homeowners from skyrocketing taxes during years of rapid growth, clobbered investors during the recent boom and created huge tax disparities among owners of similar properties. Some investors saw their taxes more than double.

Starting next year, tax changes approved in a constitutional amendment in January cap assessments for non-homesteaded properties at 10 percent.

Most second-home owners believed their market values -- and therefore their taxes -- would fall this year.

TRICKY YEAR

M.J. Stone, a property-tax consultant who helps homeowners challenge their assessments, said frustration among her clients was the worst she had ever seen, primarily due to a misconception that values had plummeted by up to 30 percent across the board, as indicated by some widely reported home-price indexes this year.

''That may be true in the luxury condo market, but not necessarily the single-family home market,'' Stone said. ``The county, which is doing a mass appraisal technique, can't simply apply 30 percent reductions.''

County property appraisers admit this has been a particularly tricky year for valuing property. In Broward, for instance, the 26,000 'qualified' sales were used as a basis for valuing 430,000 homes. In Miami-Dade, qualified home sales fell from about 75,000 in 2006 to 43,500 last year -- and 700,000 homes had to be assessed.

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