Kootenay homeowners can expect to see a rise in their assessment notices, with the region’s property values set to rise up to 10 per cent this year according to BC Assessment.
In the West Kootenays, Nelson and Salmo are predicted to increase by 2 per cent, while Castlegar and Silverton show the largest increase of 6 per cent and Trail with 7 per cent.
The Village of Slocan is the only location to predict a decrease, with -3 per cent according to BC Assessment.
BC Assessment Deputy Assessor, Boris Warkentin says the Kootenays is showing more growth than our other Southern Interior counterparts.
“What we’ve noticed is that the market has been relatively flat, steady or stable for most of the properties within the Kamloops and Kelowna, but once we get into the Kootenays, there seems to be some more market appreciation happening.” said Warkentin.
“And what we needed to do when we compare the sale prices of properties to our assessments, we needed to increase those to make sure that our assessments fairly reflect what properties are actually selling for.”
“What we’re seeing is that the Kootenays has typically a lesser value than the many other parts of the province is that that seems to be more the affordable place, And so it seems that the demand is still very strong down there. And as a result, you’re seeing some areas that are having some market appreciation occurring right now.”
The 2025 property assessments, which reflect market value as of July 1, 2024, have been announced for property owners of nearly 445,000 properties throughout the Southern Interior.
“For 2025, most homeowners can expect generally flat property assessment value changes in the -5% to +5% range for many Thompson Okanagan communities while homeowners in Kootenay Columbia areas may see a higher rate of change in the 0% to +10% range.”
These examples demonstrate market trends for single-family residential properties by geographic area:
Southern Interior outlook
Homeowners in the Kootenays can expect to see their 2025 assessment notices in the next few days.
“For property owners throughout the Southern Interior, there may be a delay in receiving your 2025 Assessment Notices due to ongoing Canada Post backlogs, but anyone can check updated values at bcassessment.ca, using our online property search service.”
Warkentin says anyone who disagrees with the value of their home or property can go online and get in touch with a representative.
“I would suggest is that the first thing you do is to go on to bcassessment.ca, our website there is really helpful to provide homeowners indication of how they can determine whether their assessment is fair or not.”
“We have no vested interest in keeping the assessment high or low, we just want to make sure that the assessment fairly reflects what the property would have sold for if it was for sale last summer.”
“If after doing that you are still not happy, we would encourage anybody to give us a call at 1-866-825-8322. We do have appraisers available online or by phone that they can contact us and work through those questions.”
“These assessed values are based on what the sales are doing around July 1st, 2024. Anything that is occurring in the market now is going to be outside what BC Assessment values are – we respond to what the market is doing and what the sales are showing us.”
Anyone who wishes to submit an appeal regarding their assessment has until January 30th to file.
A link to the release can be found here.
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