There was no significant change in 2019 property assessment values, but Foothills County is wary to see what 2020 brings with lower sales to-date.
So far this year there have been fewer property sales than previous years, and market value is trending downward with the economy.
In June, only nine Foothills properties were sold, a drop of seven per cent over the same month last year, and May showed a three per cent fall, said Diane Fraser, appointed assessor for the County.
“We’re going to wait for July and see what happens, since July 1 is our evaluation date,” said Fraser. “It’s going to be a tough year next year, even just to do the analysis.”
In general, 2019 market values dropped slightly from 2018. Parcels under six acres slid back to 2015 levels of $815,000 (from $857,500 last year). However, the overall residential market saw a decrease of three per cent.
This assessment included both vacant and improved properties, said Fraser.
“The overall taxable portion showed a drop in market of 3.01 per cent and a slight increase in growth of 1.35 per cent,” she said.
Despite a three per cent drop overall, some regions of the County saw larger decreases in market value, including a drop of 8.93 per cent in Heritage Lake, 8.19 per cent at The Ranch, 7.3 per cent at Pinehurst and 14.21 per cent at Country Labe RV Park, she said.
The majority of County parcels were assessed between $500,000 and $815,000, with the second-highest number of properties in the $200,000 to $500,000 range, a fairly equal number sitting between $815,000 and $1 million and between $1-2 million, and very few assess lower than $200,000 or higher than $2 million.
There was a more significant change to the designated industrial property assessment role, as the County reassessed properties owned by oil and gas firms Lexin Resources and LP Operating, reducing their values to a nominal amount.
“We can’t take assessment off all together, but we did reduce it down to a nominal amount, so that caused a large decrease there,” said Fraser.
Krista Conrad, OkotoksToday.ca
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