How appraisal and Assessments differ

People believe that appraisals and assessments are the same thing and are of the same amount. But in reality they are of different nature. Let’s see how they differ.

Appraisal

An appraisal is an approximate market value and the appraiser may find out different ways to come up with it. When an appraiser estimates the market value of a home he compares his price to the other similar properties recently sold. The appraising property is given the maximum weight age. A special feature of an appraisal is the value at which both the parties agree to buy and sell the property, that is, the contract price.

Assessment

An assessment is the taxable price that the local government demands of you for the property. According to some people, the values of these sample assessments are equal to the market value and for some they are the percentage of the market value. An assessment can very well differ from the actual price of the property. It is entirely on the hands of the jurisdiction as to whether they want to raise the assessment value or lower them. The fickleness of the assessment values does not earn it much high favor among people today.