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PREPARING SUBMISSIONS ON THE MARKET VALUE OF YOUR PROPERTY
If you disagree that your property’s assessed value equals its market value, then you will need to provide evidence and analysis to establish your property’s market value. Appellants may wish to hire a professional appraiser, who has education and experience in this field. Alternatively, a layperson should be able to prepare a reasonable analysis by applying a combination of market research, common sense, and a logical approach.
Step 1: Find Comparable Sales Data
The best evidence of the market value of your property would be a sale of your property on the Valuation Date. Since that is highly unlikely, you must look for sales of other properties that are similar to yours in attributes such as size, age, and location, and as close to the July 1st valuation date as possible. There are several ways to find sales data:
- from early January to March 15 each year, the BC Assessment website has limited property sales from your area. You can also view this information at your local BC Assessment office;
- a real estate salesperson/broker can help by doing a search of the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) database by date of sale, neighbourhood, and attributes; or
- you may search for property sales data through the Land Title office. However, there is a per-property fee and you receive information only on price, not property attributes. See the note below.
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You will need the legal descriptions of the properties that sold, which you can get from the Assessment Roll by searching by municipal addresses. The Roll can be viewed at your local BC Assessment office, many libraries, and most municipal offices. Ask specifically for the declared value or sale price to be shown on the Land Title computer printout. Keep copies of the search results, so they may be attached to your submissions filed with the Board. |
If you cannot find adequate sales, you could provide listings for similar properties. However, please be aware that listings are usually considered less reliable than actual sales. Listings may only illustrate the upper end of value and do not provide a solid indication of market value.
Take photographs of the outside of the sale properties and mark their locations on a map of the area, to show their location relative to your property.
Step 2: Prepare a Property Comparison Chart
Typically you use a comparison chart to explain the condition and attributes of your property, and then show how each comparable property is similar and how it differs. You then make adjustments to the comparable’s sale price to account for the influence of these dissimilar features.
- Time Adjustments: In a rising or falling market, you may need to account for market changes between a property’s sale date and July 1. For example, if a property sold March 1st, you need to account for 4 months worth of market movement. Preferably you should include some justification or evidence on how the time adjustment was arrived at.
- Attribute Adjustments: You must account for attributes or characteristics of the sold properties that are different from yours. Focus on the major factors that impact value, rather than trying to list every possible influence. Think of the “big picture” aspects buyers consider when shopping for real estate, and de-emphasize the rest – too much detail will not help your case. For example, you might consider some or all of: location, lot size, house size, view, waterfront, number of bedrooms/bathrooms, condition, quality of finish, garage, etc. Please note that your analysis may consider all, some, or different attributes than those listed in the comparison charts and samples.
Adjustment Methodology
Making adjustments is typically the most difficult aspect of appraisal. This section and the sample comparison charts provide some guidance on how to make adjustments. There are two methods used for adjustments:
Method 1 (recommended) Quantitative Adjustments: You may adjust for differences quantitatively or numerically: meaning adding and subtracting dollar amounts or percentages to account for differences. This is illustrated in the sample quantitative comparison chart.
- If the sold property is inferior to yours, you add to its sale price. If the sold property is superior to yours, you subtract from its sale price (you can remember this with the acronym IASS: Inferior = Add; Superior = Subtract).
- You must provide an explanation or rationale for why you made your adjustments, why you chose to add or subtract value for a given feature, and why you chose the relative size of adjustments, e.g., why you chose to adjust $1,000 versus $20,000.
Method 2 Qualitative Adjustments: You may adjust for differences qualitatively: meaning subjectively rating the quality of each sold property’s attributes in comparison to your property. This is illustrated in the sample qualitative comparison chart.
- Ensure you provide explanations for your ratings!
Note that a qualitative analysis is typically not considered as strong as a good quantitative analysis.
Charts and Examples: To go to the charts click on the one you want to view:
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- Reconciliation: Use the adjusted sale prices to indicate a range of values for your property and explain where you place your property in this range. Given this range and where your property falls in it, what is your best estimate of your property’s market value on July 1st?
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