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Homeowners….did you get one of these in the mail recently? Do you know what it is? Honestly, before becoming a real estate agent, I really didn’t pay much attention to these notices. But when we got ours this year, I was intrigued.
In a nutshell, each year, the county sends out inspectors to certain neighborhoods to perform physical inspections of properties. They rotate the neighborhoods throughout the years and are required to physically inspect each property once every 6 years, and to revaluate each property on a yearly basis.
A very detailed report is then produced that describes physical and characteristic attributes about a specific area, gives a high-level summary of the number of homes/townhomes/multi-family/new construction/vacant land in the area, number of existing homes and recent sales price ranges, and break-outs of different zoning types. The report for my area was 38-pages long and I learned some cool stuff about my neighborhood.
To get to a value for your property, they analyze sales over the past few years and adjust those sales based on a time factor derived by fancy modeling techniques.
The value of your property is based on the general trend of improvements going on in your neighborhood but, for example, your 1,500 square foot home is not valued based on the mansion that sold on the water last year.
I learned that there is a significant amount of work that goes into creating these property values. And there is an appeals process if you feel your value is too high.
So now you know! I went down the rabbit hole so you don’t have to, but if you want to follow my path, go to King County Assessor – Area Reports.
