SUNDRE – Installing solar panels or adopting geothermal heating systems has not yet been shown to drive up the market value of a house that has undergone green upgrades, the Town of Sundre's property assessor said.
Kevin Bohlken, with Red Deer-based Wild Rose Assessment Services Inc. – the largest assessment firm in central Alberta providing service to 38 municipalities including Sundre – was invited as a delegate to a town council meeting last month.
Following a lengthy presentation detailing how the assessment process works, Bohlken was responding to questions from council when he made the comment.
Coun. Jaime Marr asked in his experience whether energy efficient homes were valued higher, lower or roughly the same as traditional homes.
While there aren’t an overwhelming number of such homes in the municipalities the assessors work in, Bohlken said, “What I’ve seen is they’re either identical or in fact could be lower depending on the actual amount of green use.”
In some instances, there are homes that use geothermal, “which some (people) debate whether this side of Rockies is very good,” he said.
“There’s a couple of swimming pools that have tried to use geothermal and they’re not very warm swimming pools,” he said.
As well, Bohlken added he has received many more permits for solar panels in recent years.
“There is no assessment total applied to solar yet,” he said.
“We still don’t have any proof as to whether or not that adds actual value to the sale or not; the hope is eventually that it does for people that are installing it.
“But we’ve seen nothing that says this is a green home and that that market would translate to an increased value.”
Marr also inquired if assessments “stale out” in the event a house on the market does not sell.
Bohlken said they use a three-year average when a property stales out, which can be a challenging situation with fluctuations in prices.
“Kind of the problem we’re getting into some areas right now, are that we’re getting fewer sales, but those sales that we are getting are increasing substantially,” he said.
Earlier during his presentation, he had told council there in Sundre had been approximately 230 sales over the past couple of years.
“That’s a lot of sales,” he said.
“For a town this size, the number of sales that Sundre has is quite incredible,” he said, later going onto add “the market in Sundre is still strong for residential.”
Marr also wanted to know on average how many complaints and appeals the assessor receives in Sundre.
“We get quite a few phone calls every year,” said Bohlken.
But most of them can be explained or he’ll do an inspection and occasionally identify an error, ultimately translating into scarcely more than one officially filed complaint a year, he said.
Coun. Todd Dalke asked whether the land or a building is what tends to increase in value.
“It’s more on the land,” said Bohlken, adding improvements are also a driver.
Dalke followed up to say his question tied into the matter of appraised versus assessed versus insured value and cited as an example his own street where there have only been a couple of sales.
“A lot of us don’t mind our value being the same as what it was, because we haven’t changed our house in 15 or 20 years, but yet our assessment has gone up,” he said, adding that by extension drives up insurance rates at no fault of the residents when it’s the value of the land that’s increased.
Bohlken said he could not comment on insured values but added insurance companies are looking at the value of replacing a home anew.
Ultimately, inflation is a factor and values everywhere are increasing, he said, adding Sundre also has what he called some of the “Calgary influence.”
“You’re so close to recreation and nature,” he said, adding that appeals to many people.
“People’s willingness to drive now, is so much more than it was 30 years ago,” he said.
“People are willing to drive an hour … it’s pushing values.”
Following the discussion, council unanimously carried a motion approving Bohlken’s presentation for information.
