Why is the assessment different from the sale price recently paid?
Assessments are based on typical values within neighborhoods. While the sale price of a property will affect its assessment, the effect will be diluted by the mass appraisal methods which consider all sales within a neighborhood in determining assessed values. Also, the County primarily uses sales occurring within a 12-month period which spans the time from 18 months prior to the January 1 assessment date to 6 months prior to the January 1 assessment date. A consequence of this time lag is that the assessments of properties which have sold very recently may differ from the sales prices by a marked amount when real estate markets are changing.
