Based on Sales
I am the dreaded tax assessor for a small town in Maine, and like FL, assessments are based on local sales. These sales are used to determine the price per square foot as the BASE for the calculations. There are factors that push/pull the values up/down, such as square footage, year built, physical depreciation (wear/tear of a building), amenities such as number of BR/Bathrooms, etc…, Quality of construction, all these items affect the overall value. So, it’s often hard to compare apples-to-apples as most homes are slightly different.
You and your neighbor may have identical homes, 1200 sf ranch, but maybe your upkeep is better than his, perhaps you have a newer roof, this affect depreciation; maybe he has 3 bathrooms and you only have 2, all these make a difference in calculating value.
In Maine, we look at the sales ratio (this is the ASSESSED value divided by the SALE price) and when we do this, we look at the center quartile of sales or the middle 50% of sales; this eliminates the outliers. This ratio helps determine the updated building values.
Hope this helps…Clint
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