25 July 2008

Land Value

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Like all local households I received my land valuation notice in the mail in the last week or so. What I did notice that remarkably, once again, the value of my land ‘increased’ by 10% again. Of course my rates are based on that land value so once again up they go.

Now my question is who does these assessments because I’m damn sure my ‘house’ as such isn’t increasing in value by 10% every year. If it was I would be getting ready to sell it and pay cash for a new one in a few years based on a climb of that nature.

Its quite strange that the assessment of my land alone makes it look like a far more attractive investment than my whole house, but surely this wouldn’t be something like the government just gouging more money out of me……surely?

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The gubmint (local gubmint in the states work the same) works out the budget first. Once they know how much money they need, they decide how to split it between business and residential properties. Then they use the UAV to proportion the rates against every rateable property. Then they send you a bill.

If *everyones* rates went up by 10% and the budget went up by $0 then no-one would pay more. The rate per $ of UAV changes every year.

This isn’t rocket-science, but it is very mis-understood.

http://www.revenue.act.gov.au/rates

Bigred – see the table on this page, everyone pays a “fixed charge” for services, then a $valuation based on UAV.

Replace with a poll tax!

amarooresident said :

From memory the Australain Valuation Office (Fed Government Agency) do the valuations on behalf of the ACT Government.

It’s a desk value (i.e. a guy sitting at a desk taking a guess based on sell prices etc)not in any form a valuation based on observation.

You can contest the valuation if you wish, you have to cough up $20 for it. But on the otherhand it could save you more than that and you get the $20 back if it succeeds.

Aligning rates with land\values is really a regressive wealth tax. Absurd. The cost of collecting a garbo bin is the same in charnwood as it would be in manuka. Best rating system is to charge per metre occupied.

I’m not going to object, I just find it rather amusing.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy5:48 pm 25 Jul 08

It’s also worth noting that their ‘value’ may have been a few years old, and they are attempting to make your deemed value current.

amarooresident5:27 pm 25 Jul 08

From memory the Australain Valuation Office (Fed Government Agency) do the valuations on behalf of the ACT Government.

Ya, land appreciates, houses depreciate (as a broad generalisation). Keep that in mind if you’re thinking of buying an apartment.

vg, if you feel hard done by, I believe there’s avenues of appeal. The risk you take is that they take a closer look and decide that maybe they underestimated it the first time, though!

captainwhorebags5:03 pm 25 Jul 08

Remember that even if the market value of your property stays the same or drops slightly, your land can still be appreciating whilst the dwelling itself depreciates.

Someone once told me that the sweet spot for house & land was about 7 years, after that the house no longer is “new” enough to be attractive. The price you get if you sell may still rise, but that’s largely the rock and dirt appreciating, not the bricks and mortar.

Your land value has gone up not the value of your entire property, so of course it is not going to be worth 10% more. Indeed the value of the actual house may well have dropped 10%.

Also you don’t say what suburb you live in, as you will find newer suburbs go up by a small amount in their first few years, then after about 3 or 4 have a steady rise for a few more years.

Apparently rates increases are directly proportional to how much money governments have promised to give away in any certain election years.

I’m predicting significant ‘gains’ in land value into the future then…

Holden Caulfield3:07 pm 25 Jul 08

Apparently house prices in Canberra rose by more than 15% over the course of 2007.

I guess that explains the 15% increase in our UAV, farkn.

Is this the case….land values in Amaroo do not go up as much as land values in Griffith based on the availability of land in that area etc? ie As there’s a heap of land available out that way over the past three years land values in Amaroo shouldn’t have gone up by much….

Is there anywhere where we can see land valuation tables for previous years based on suburbs.

And do they take into account things like proximity to shops, schools, slope and shape of block, street type etc

Does a bloke actually go around and work out how valuable your block is or allocate what attributes it has that makes it more valuable than the next one?

Values have plateaued or declined slightly over the last three months, however this is offset by large increases in the preceding 9 months.

i thought values had plateaued?

As Mark Twain said, “buy land, they aren’t makning any more of it”. Land is running out in the Can’ so its value, especially closer to Civic is going up. Round my way a 3br original condition double brick cottage on a good sized block recently sold at auction for $640,000 – it was subsequently gutted and a whole new house is being put up in its place.

Mine went down in 2005 and then back up to the same value in 2006 as it was in 2004. There was a big hike last year, don’t know about this year yet.

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