Tuesday, January 5, 2016

North Coast Property Assessments in the Mail

The first of your New Year's mail deliveries will bring word of the assessed value of your property, with BC Assessments rolling out their annual findings when it comes to properties across the Northwest.

Assessment notices should be arriving in mailboxes across the region this week and for most residents of Prince Rupert an increases is what you will find when you open up that envelope. With many around the city sharing in your interest in the nudge upwards once again for properties within the City of Prince Rupert limits.

BC Assessments review of the community has noted a continuation of recent increases in value for 2016 residential assessments and for Prince Rupert the change will bring a 13 per cent increase in the assessed value, while Port Edward residents are looking at an 8 per cent jump in the values.

From those numbers, Prince Rupert can lay claim to the title of largest increase for the Northwest, indicative of the heated nature of the city's real estate sector over the recent year as speculation over LNG development continued to make its mark on the community.

Its interesting to note that the both the Terrace and Kitimat regions have seen declines in their assessed values for the year, with Terrace receiving a slight decline of 2 percent, while Kitimat saw a 12 percent decline in the assessed values for the year.

Background on the Average Single Family Dwelling values between 2015 and 2016, as well as the change between years can be found below:

Northwest

Prince Rupert  $233,000 (2015)   $251,000 (2016)  13 percent increase
Port Edward    $172,000 (2015)   $185,000 (2016)    8 percent increase
Smithers          $274,000 (2015)   $283,000 (2016)    3 percent increase
Terrace            $316,000 (2015)   $309,000 (2016)   2 percent decrease
Kitimat            $331,000 (2015)   $291,000 (2016)   12 percent decrease

Haida Gwaii

Queen C City   $169,000 (2015)  $166,000 (2016)   2 percent decrease
Masset              $124,000 (2015   $125,000 (2016)   1 percent increase
Port Clements   $77,000 (2015)   $82,000 (2016)     7 percent increase

One statistic that stands out from this years assessment review is the impact in some of the resource dependent communities of the Northeast, where an economic slowdown in key resource industries has provided for declines in assessed values of 19 percent in Fraser Lake and 34 percent in Tumbler Ridge.

One property broke into the top forty of high valued assessments with a Lakelse Lake property near Terrace listed at number 33, four other properties in the same area also claimed a spot in the listings of 100 properties from across Northern British Columbia.

Some background from BC Assessments when it comes to this years findings can be found here.

To explain the process further, BC Assessments has provided a helpful video presentation to explain the 2016 assessment.



If you can't wait until the mail arrives, you can view your assessment and compare your property value with others in the city from the BC Assessments website which features this look up portal.

That provides a helpful look for those that may be in the market for a new home for 2016, allowing residents to check out the assessed values of houses all over the city and how property values may have change over the last twelve months.

Residents who wish to request an independent review before a property assessment panel must file their written notice complaint with the assessor by January 31st.

You can find out more about that process by contacting the Northwest Assessment office in Terrace or by phone at 1-866-825-8322

Other key dates in the assessment process timeline can be found here.

You can learn more about BC Assessment and nature of property assessments from the BC Assessment home page here.

The Northern BC Real Estate Board provided its response to the release of BC Assessment information, you can review their thoughts here.

You can compare this years assessment information, from that of past years from our archive pages below:

2015
2014
2013

More items related to Real Estate and Housing can be found on our archive page here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review



     

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