The Assessor's office is responsible for estimating the market value of your property for tax purposes. This is accomplished through discovering, identifying, and classifying all taxable property in the city. To determine the value of any piece of property, the assessor's office must first gather all pertinent information such as the physical description of the improvement, real estate sales, construction costs, rental incomes, operating expenses, interest rates and any other factors that may affect value. The assessor's office analyzes that type of data to establish the market value for each property.

The market value of your property is simply the probable price that it would sell for in an arm's length transaction between a willing buyer and a willing seller. In Michigan, market value is defined as "true cash value." This is the valuation process because the market value of almost everything changes from one year to the next. Every assessor is required by state law to assess at 50% of true cash value all assessable property as of December 31. This includes homes, factories, commercial properties, vacant land, and personal property (machinery, equipment, furniture, fixtures, signs, etc. for commercial and industrial properties).