Valuation date
Valuation notices are mailed annually in March and include an estimated property value as of January 2nd each year. That value is utilized in the distribution of taxes in the following year.
Sales study period
For each assessment, the assessor considers sales that occurred between October and September in the year leading up to the valuation date of January 2nd.
Not all sales included
Not all sales are representative of the market. Some sales, such as foreclosures, sales between relatives, or sales where the seller or buyer are acting under undue duress are not considered open-market, arm’s-length transactions and are not used in sales ratio studies, nor are they used as comparable sales in estimating the value of similar properties.
Appreciating market
Over this past year the real estate market in Bloomington has seen significant gains, greater than experienced in recent history.
Sales occurring prior to the assessment date must be analyzed with consideration given to appreciation that may have occurred between the sale date and the assessment date.
Mass appraisal isn’t based on an individual sale
It’s also true that people purchase property based, at least in part, on their own preferences. This results in perceived “good” and “bad” deals occurring every day. Mass appraisal techniques seek to value all properties based on the sale transactions of many similar properties.
The assessed value is not based on an individual sale, but rather a consideration of many sales, resulting in an indicated value, or “most likely” price.
