Property Assessments in the Mail
Prince George, B.C. – Northern B.C. residents can expect to receive their 2016 property assessment notices in the mail this week.
245,000 will be distributed throughout the region and will reflect market value as of July 1 2015.
“The majority of residential home owners within the region can expect a slight increase compared to last year’s assessment,” says Deputy Assessor David Keough. “Most home owners in the Northern B.C. region will see changes in the 0% to +10% range.”
Home owners in Prince George will see a 6% increase, from $254,000 (July 1, 2014) to $268,000 (July 1, 2015).
Quesnel home owners will see a 3% increase and in Vanderhoof, home owners there will see a 4% increase.
Williams Lake homeowners will see no change in the value of their homes while in Mackenzie home owners will see a 3% decrease.
The biggest assessment drop is in Tumbler Ridge where they have plummeted 34% while the biggest jump is in Taylor where assessments are up 16% (for a full listing of assessments go to bcassessment.ca).
Overall, the Northern BC region’s total assessments increased from $57.2 billion in 2015 to $59.5 billion this year. A total of nearly $1.4 billion of the region’s updated assessments is from new construction, subdivisions and rezoning of properties.
Comments
One thing I never understand, council continuously approves rate increases of at least 2% (3% for 2016), with the excuse its an inflationary increase… They never seem to acknowledge the value of properties have increased as well, so we’re actually getting hit far more than inflation.
Using the average price (from above).
2015 tax burden – $3,083.75 (before home owners grant)
2016 tax burden – $3,351.34 (before home owners grant)
which means we’re effectively seeing an 8.7% increase in residential property taxes.
I know we can’t always bank on property prices increasing, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what’s happening in your local real estate market. PG values have been on the rise for nearly a decade. I would understand the constant increases in tax rate if we continued to see a decrease in property values in order to maintain a level, however, this is not the case.
We just voted in a guy who claims a budget balances itself. The new trend …spend spend spend. And guess what, someone does have to pay for the drunken sailors tab. To bad it is not the drunken sailor.
X-it and this has exactly what to do with property assessments going up in PG ? Unless you are worried that our city council is as clueless to what a balanced is as Harper was
One thing I never understand is why so many people commenting on here at this time of year do not understand the relationship with individual property assessments, total city tax increases and mill rates.
I am tired of trying to explain it. I wish the City would have an explanation on their web site and that news services would provide an annual explanation for it as well.
It is quite possible that if one’s residential assessment increased in 2016 over that of 2015that one would be paying less taxes this year per $1,000 assessed value than in 2015, even with a 3% increase in the TOTAL tax over the 2015 tax.
To make things even more interesting, if the City was to increase the proportion of the tax levy on commercial property in relation to the tax levy on residential properties, taxes for most residential properties would actually be reduced even further. Out City has a very low commercial property tax rate compared to other communities our size and larger. But the Chamber of Commerce lobbies every year that their taxes are too high. We have no residential ratepayers’ association that does the same with home owners.
huffingtonpost.ca/2014/09/27/property-taxes-canada_n_5890090.html
When it comes to mill rate.. tax assessment etc it basically means the city will do what it wants to get the money it wants..
Oh look…..the comments are open on this story.
And taxes are lower in PG then here in Abbotsford and probably compared to other communities as well. You want your roads repaired and infrastructure maintained you have to pay the bill.
Cheers
Taxes bases on property values, mill rates, and assessments arrived at from assessors in distant places with sharp pencils, and erasers, are hardly a good way to find out what and why you are paying more and more taxes. We should all know by now that the formula used is to generate more taxes for the City when they want it.
Fact of the matter is taxes go up because the City wants more money and refuses to take the hard line when it comes to costs.
My house taxes increased 2012-2013 $127.29
2013-2014 $ 72.49
2014-2015 $ 24.16
__________________
Total increase $223.94
Utilities 2012-2013 $182.10
2013-2014 $116.88
2014-2015 $133.08
__________________
Total increase $432.06
Overall increase $656.00 or $218.66 per year (average)
So forget the formula and look at your tax bill. Increases every year and more coming.
I am hoping that this Council stops these increases.
Palopu, while you may hope that this Council stops the increases, it’s unlikely to happen!
Why, you might ask?
We have one of the highest paid municipal workforces in the Province and that’s extremely unlikely to change!
Overpaid municipal staff doesn’t come cheap!
The property I bought in 1976 at a City land auction cost less than 10% of the assessed value on July 1, 2015.
The combined cost of the property plus the house I built on it cost me about 15% of the current assessed value.
The property taxes I paid in 1976 were about 15% of the property taxes I pay these days.
When looking at it from the point of view of ratios, nothing has changed in PG.
In those communities, such as Vancouver, where property values over that 40-year period have increased by at least a factor of 5 when compared to Prince George, the ratio of municipal taxes to property value have dropped. The opposite is true for communities where property values have not increased as much as in Prince George.
Isn’t math fun? … :-)
our assessment went from 147k last year to 172k this year – that is an increase of almost 20% – no where near the 6% they say it went up
“our assessment went from 147k last year to 172k this year – that is an increase of almost 20% – no where near the 6% they say it went up ”
That’s simply an average. It won’t apply to every household in PG. Some have decreased in value.
Comments for this article are closed.