For most people their home is the only major investment they have. With interest rates now at a 35-year low you may want to consider refinancing, or your own financial situation (because of job loss or another financial down turn, such as the stock market) could mean you will be considering selling your home or other investment property, just to continue meeting expenses. If that's the case, you must know its current value. This article is for you.

I was really surprised recently while gathering year end figures for our business, part of which is to assign the value movement in real estate in our local area (50 mile radius). As we computed the actual difference in the average residential selling price (not listings for sale, but sold and closed homes) between 2007 and 2008, it was only down a little over 2%! This was really surprising, because I've been reading the same news as you and was braced for grim figures. I have realtor friends in other geographic locations who are reporting that for the same period their drop was more than 23%. So my point is, you need to know the value of your property in your market location!

How Property Assessment Really Works
First of all, every states property assessment process is very similar. They all start off with the commonly accepted appraisal methods. There is the cost, comparable, and income approaches. As fair as residential they are mostly focused on the comparable approach. This is where similar sold properties to the subject, are compared and differences are adjusted to the properties value.

Property Assessment – Assessment Ratio

Once the assessor, has determined their opinion of the fair market value of your property, he then multiples this value by the cities assessment ratio. The assessment ratio varies from state to state and also varies from city to city. It is also known as the sales ratio. For example, in Birmingham, Michigan its 50%.

How to Expand Your Property Portfolio

or many sophisticated property investors, expanding their property portfolio is considered a wise option when properties can be picked up cheaply. And despite recent rate increases, property investors' confidence in their portfolio still remains as strong as ever.

A Paragon Mortgages survey of property investors revealed that 50% of the respondents think that the value of their portfolio will rise. This is because landlords anticipate an increase in the value of their existing portfolio over the medium to long term.

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