In most locations in Canada, no one likes to hear the term property assessment. When you get one of those letters in the mail, what it usually means is you are about to pay more in taxes. Municipalities make a large portion of their money off of property assessments, and living in a Burlington zip means that you are no exception. You will probably not have a property assessment which values your property as highly as you would if you were to own a piece of Brantford real estate.

It can be helpful for Canadian home owners to understand just what a property assessment is. Among other things, you can appeal your assessment if you think the property taxes you are paying in a current year are too high; maybe you know that if you put your home for sale in Mississauga, it would be bought for much less than the assessment says.

That kind of thing is what gives a Markham home owner grounds for appeal on their property assessment, but we are getting a little bit ahead of ourselves; let's outline exactly what a property assessment is.

Property assessments are carried out by property assessors, who are trained real estate professionals on the payroll of the municipality. You will find that the end value of the assessment is usually less than what you might see listed in a Ajax MLS, contrary to what most home owners believe. This is because much of the assessment is based on paper research. The assessor is not always looking directly at your property, but rather at various developments around your property.

Those developments include a wide variety of things. If a condominium development has gone up nearby, it will directly affect the appeal of your home for a buyer. The same is true of construction of universities or colleges, hospitals and schools. The assessor will look at how your property is accessed, with the more available it is resulting in higher assessed values.

Every once in a while, an assessor will take a look at your physical property, although this rarely means taking a look inside. Improvements to the land will mean that the assessed value is raised (higher value is of course the goal of the improvement). For the most part, though, assessors are working with paper; comparing the sale price of other houses nearby when determining what your property is worth.

Many people get property assessments confused with valuations, but don't make this mistake. Assessments are ballpark figures based on paperwork, and actually rarely is the assessed value as high as what the property could sell for. To get that figure, most people use a tool such as a free Edmonton home evaluation provided by a real estate professional.