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Property appraisers have a lot on their plate, from ensuring fair property valuations to managing the complexities of ever-changing market conditions. And that plate gets even fuller when appraisers must rely on manual processes with limited GIS support.
The Parcel Value Analysis solution helps appraisers face these challenges by transforming how they visualize and assess property data. How? With the solution, appraisers can dynamically view standard sales ratio statistics for any group of sales and then stratify the sales based on any property characteristic. Additionally, the solution includes advanced location tools that provide crucial insights, empowering appraisers with a more thorough understanding of sale properties.
In short, by replacing spreadsheets and static systems with interactive maps and apps, appraisers can easily spot outliers and inequities, analyze sales ratios, and uncover neighborhood trends in real time. Here’s how one county made it work for them.
Part and parcel
Tooele County, Utah, lies just 35 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. It is the fastest-growing county in the state, with a growth that continually surpasses the national average. The county’s land parcels—approximately 34 thousand of them—include a mix of rural areas, salt flats, and rapidly developing regions. The job of valuing these parcels belongs to Real Property Administrator (Chief Deputy) Cassandra Macklin and her team of five additional appraisers. Each appraiser is fully responsible for their area—permits, data input, greenbelt, sales cleaning, analysis, and appeals—which means the parcel-to-employee workload is significant.
For years, the county used Excel and NCSS statistical software to manually analyze sales ratios. At the same time, there was just one GIS professional on staff, and that person already had their hands full with tasks for the recorder’s office and emergency management. A sales ratio analyst would pull data, but the bulk of the work fell to the county’s appraisers, who had to meet regularly to review and adjust those ratios and then meet again to review the changes. The process improved after the county adopted PUMA, a state-sponsored computer-assisted mass appraisal (CAMA) system; moving sales into this program allowed for the live connection to data. . However, the NCSS output, analysis process, and the review remained time-consuming and cumbersome.
But then, at the 2022 GIS & Valuation Technologies Conference in New Orleans, Macklin attended a presentation about the Parcel Value Analysis solution. She was impressed by the solution’s ability to update ratios visually and in real time based on filters. It was clear to her that adopting the solution would provide a significant improvement over the county’s current methods.
Game changer
Tooele County implemented the solution, and now, appraisers all have access to live data and can perform their own analyses and make real-time adjustments. The appraisal process is more efficient and less stressful, and not having to wait for the sales ratio analyst to review and approve changes means that the team easily meets state deadlines. In fact, implementing the Parcel Value Analysis solution has shaved about three weeks off the timeline.
This year, when we sat down for our first meeting to look at ratios, the appraisers were already 99 percent of the way there on their analysis and implementation of this year’s values. It has streamlined our process immensely.
Clean plate
If increased efficiency and decreased appraisal times aren’t impressive enough, Parcel Value Analysis has also helped the county improve visualization and better analyze vertical equity. Appraisers can use the solution to see the impact of clustering or ratio discrepancy on property values in a specific area, for example, something that was difficult to visualize in a spreadsheet. And, by adding filters to a map, appraisers can see ratios between different price ranges, which makes it easier to ensure consistency and address any issues related to vertical equity.
From the inside out
The solution has had internal benefits as well. Because appraisers have access to the same live data, perform their own analyses, and make adjustments in real time, meetings are now less frequent but more productive. Tonya Short, appraiser and lead sales analyst, loves how quickly she can identify issues in values, while appraiser Adam Mausser says that the solution helps them adjust their appraised values and align their ratios much more quickly. And according to assessor Joy Peters, the solution has brought positive change to the office, and she firmly believes that appraisal analysis needs to go in this direction.
The changes the solution has brought to the office have been amazing.
Cassandra Macklin is thrilled with the profound success of the solution and credits her team for their willingness to embrace new technology and Nick Kenczka of the Utah State Tax Commission for his collaboration and program insights. She’s especially grateful to the county’s GIS analyst Dylan Haight, who took the time to learn the solution and figure out how to tie it into their live data.
Like her team, Macklin appreciates the solution for improving efficiency and saving time, saying, “I am so thankful I was not up until midnight making adjustments like I have done in previous years.” Thanks to the Parcel Value Analysis solution, Macklin and her team can rest easy, knowing that midnight changes are a thing of the past.
Learn more
For more information about the Parcel Value Analysis solution, check out the following resources:
- Learn how to deploy, configure, and use the solution.
- View a demo video.
- Discover related solutions:
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