After several years of leaping average values, prices for single-family properties in the Boundary are projected to level out in 2020, BC Assessment reported on Jan. 2, when the Crown agency sent out its annual property assessments in the mail to individual homeowners and published regional results online. The projections are based on what was happening in the real estate market as of July 1, 2019.
Region-by-region, properties in Kootenay-Columbia, which includes the Boundary, saw the most widespread overall increase in the province, according to BC Assessments, where the only areas to see a dip in value was the Village of Slocan, which dipped by one per cent, and the Village of Midway at seven per cent.
Even the drops though, BC Assessment said, are within normal range.
“A change of minus or plus 10 per cent is really a very stable assessment,” said Ramaish Shah, a deputy assessor with the Crown agency. Shah explained that the relatively small pool of houses in Midway complicates where BC Assessment sets the average value of local properties, noting that the conservative valuation comes from the fact that “we just don’t want to get caught on the wrong foot if a trend continues.
What we’ve seen in the past year is that we’ve seen sales coming in slightly below where our set values were, so we changed them a small degree.”
The 2020 numbers for Boundary properties come after several years of leaping values. In 2014, for example, an average family home in Grand Forks was valued at $189,000. The 2020 average value for a single family home now sits at $253,000, $3,000 more than in 2019.
Greenwood properties also saw an overall increase of around one per cent, as the 2020 average value now sits at $134,000.
Read More: B.C. assessed home values to dip 2.5 per cent in 2020
Four Boundary homes crack the top-100 most expensive in the region surveyed as well. At nearly $4 million, the eighth-most expensive private home in the region sits slope-side at Big White, while a neighbouring home, valued at over $2 million, sits at number 83 on the list.
Two Christina Lake properties are also among the top 100. Costing around $2.5 million each, they sit at number 32 and 49, respectively.
Sixty-three of the 100 most expensive properties in the Kootenay Columbia region are in the Invermere area.
BC Assessment looked at nearly 150,000 properties in the Kootenay Columbia region for its latest report.
Overall, Kootenay Columbia’s total assessments of 147,500 properties increased from about $43.6 billion in 2019 to almost $46.7 billion, an increase of seven per cent.
A total of about $571 million of the region’s updated assessments is from new construction, subdivisions and rezoning of properties. BC Assessment’s Kootenay Columbia region covers the southeast portion of the province from Fernie to the Boundary and from Revelstoke to Cranbrook.
Shah encouraged property owners to check their own assessments online at bcassessment.ca.
“Property owners can find a lot of valuable information on our website including answers to many assessment-related questions,” he said, “but those who feel that their property assessment does not reflect market value as of July 1, 2019, or see incorrect information on their notice, should contact BC Assessment as indicated on their notice as soon as possible in January.”
Owners dissatisfied with their assessments can also appeal the number, but must submit a Notice of Complaint by Jan. 31.
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