Homebuyer Question: Why is a home's market value different than the assessed value?

• A home's market value is the price the market (current buyers) is willing to pay at the current time.

  • This can be a volatile number that goes up and down depending on what is available in that market and the current demand by buyers. In the Greater Seattle market, there is yet to be an automated home valuation tool that is remotely accurate as our neighborhoods, cities, and even surrounding counties are very diverse - For example in Capitol Hill, you may see a $300,000 studio co-op with a neighboring $3,000,000 house to one side and a $1,500,000 neighboring house to the other side. A real estate sales professional must manually figure out the market value, oftentimes calling other agents of pending, active, or closed sales to do so.

• The assessed value is the taxable value the county has determined the home to be.

  • Adjusted yearly and based on a large area’s increase or decrease in average sale prices, indiscriminately.  This value is often dramatically less than both the market and appraised value - in many cases hundreds of thousands lower. This value is important for your future property taxes and thus affects your monthly payments.

CLICK HERE for more information about market values, assessed values, and even appraised values and how they affect a home search, home buying, and home ownership here in Seattle and the PNW.