In the coming days, owners of more than 485,000 properties throughout the Fraser Valley region can expect to receive their 2018 assessment notices, which reflect market value as of July 1, 2017.
If you live in Mission, you will likely see a big rise in your home values.
According to the statistics released by BC Assessments, a Mission home increased in value by an average of 19.8 per cent, while business properties increased by 10.26 per cent and light industrial increased by 19.77 per cent.
“The majority of residential home owners within the region can expect an increase, compared to last year’s assessment,” said assessor Laura Schwagele.
“This year, we have seen a strong demand in our residential strata market and this has resulted in a larger increase compared to the residential single family detached homes.”
BC Assessment provided two examples of actual Mission homes and how their values changed.
“We pick two homes that represent what we feel or typical homes for the area.”
The first example shows a home that was worth $506,000 last year, is now valued at $602,000, an increase of 19 per cent.
The second example is a home, that was valued at $495,000 , now worth $604,000, an increase of 22 per cent.
While home values have gone up, that doesn’t mean that your property taxes will rise.
If your home’s value rose higher than the 19.8 per cent average, then your taxes will increase. If the value rose less than the average, then there will be no increase.
However, the District of Mission did approve a 3.63 per cent increase to property taxes which will apply to every property owner.
Mission isn’t the only community to see these kinds of increases.
Overall, the Fraser Valley’s total assessments increased from $430.1 billion in 2017 to $492.2 billion this year. A total of almost $10.6 billion of the region’s updated assessments is from new construction, subdivisions and rezoning of properties.
BC Assessment’s website at bcassessment.ca includes more details about 2018 assessments and provides self-service access to a free, online property assessment search service that allows anyone to search, check and compare 2018 property assessments for anywhere in the province.
“Property owners can find a lot of information on our website including answers to many assessment-related questions, but those who feel that their property assessment does not reflect market value as of July 1, 2017 or see incorrect information on their notice, should contact BC Assessment as indicated on their notice as soon as possible in January,” said Schwagele.