GIS 4048 Participation Assignment: Urban Planning - GIS for Local Government

As an extra assignment to help us achieve a better understanding of how GIS data may be used to aid local governments in assessing property values, we were required to explore property appraisers' websites for our areas. In my case, this meant the counties of southern Nevada. Below are the questions and answers for the assignment.

Q1: Does your property appraiser offer a web mapping site? If so, what is the web address? If not, what is the method in which you may obtain the data?

I have found that several Nevada counties offer various levels of web mapping. The Lincoln County, Nevada site, which was used to answer question 2, offers only scanned PDFs of parcel maps (http://lincolncountynv.org/assessor/parcelbooks.html). The Clark County, Nevada site, which covers Las Vegas, has many more options for mapping and searching but is more difficult to navigate. It can be found at http://www.clarkcountynv.gov/depts/assessor/pages/recordsearch.aspx.

Q2: What was the selling price of this property? What was the previous selling price of this property (if applicable)? Take a screen shot of the description provided to include with this answer.

Because I could not see a way on the Clark County site to limit a search to all sales in a particular month, I used the Lincoln County site. The selling price of this parcel was $8,715,000. No previous selling price was listed.

Figure 1: Search results for June 2015 in Lincoln County, NV.

Figure 2: Listing for the chosen parcel.

Q3: What is the assessed land value? Based on land record data, is the assessed land value higher or lower than the last sale price? Include a screen shot.

Using the record above, the sale price of $8,715,000 is significantly more than the assessed value of $1,131,900.

Q4: Share additional information about this piece of land that you find interesting. Many times, a link to the deed will be available providing more insight to the sale.

I would be interested in learning why there is such a difference between the assessed value and the sale amount. However, the amount of land is fairly large at 1,760,000 acres. The owner, Gaea Theos LLC is based in Las Vegas and, based on a web search, is under two months old. This was likely an investment purchase.

Figure 3: Map of parcel values in West Ridge Place, Escambia County, FL.

The second part of this assignment required us to compile the above parcel map of the West Ridge Place neighborhood in Escambia County, FL. The most important component of this map is the parcel value symbology displayed as a color ramp from red (most expensive) to green (least expensive). This symbology allows us to easily see potential problems with parcel valuation.

Q5: Which accounts do you think need review based on land value and what you’ve learned about assessment? 

A few parcels stand out as possibly in need of a review. Account number 090310165 on the north side of West Ridge Place is valued significantly higher than the parcels on either side ($33,250 versus $27,075) for no apparent reason. None are impacted by easements and all three are rectangular parcels of equal size on the same street. Interestingly, two parcels across the street from the above property are valued significantly less than neighboring parcels. These two parcels (090310320 and 090310325) are valued at $24,938 rather than the prevailing $27,075. Two additional parcels on the south side of West Ridge Place appear to be similarly undervalued compared to neighboring parcels; these are parcels 090310260 and 090310245. While they are impacted by easements, all the neighboring properties are similarly impacted but are not devalued in the same way.