The Cook County’s Assessor’s Office is responsible for valuing the more than 1.3 million residential parcels in Cook County. Cook County is divided into three assessment districts (City, North Which includes Niles Township and South). Each of the assessment districts is valued once every three years.
The Cook County Assessor’s Office uses a computer-assisted mass appraisal method to value residential properties. This computerized sales comparison model considers several different value components including, but not limited to, sales of comparable properties, land, location, building square footage, and construction type. These are some of the very same factors that would be considered by an appraiser seeking to value an individual property
Residential properties are assessed as of January 1st of the current year, using three to five years of prior sales information. By using multiple sale years, this increases the stability of market value predictions.
The appraisal method reviews all the sales within a neighborhood and estimates a market value by assigning values to the individual building characteristics of sold properties. The market values of all properties (sold and unsold) are determined by using the value estimates. Adjustments are made for disparities discovered when comparing the building characteristics, thereby accounting for differences (like age, quality of construction, size, etc.) between properties .Any necessary final adjustments are made to ensure a fair and uniform assessment of all residential properties.
Neighborhood codes define the geographic area within which home sales will be compared during the reassessment analysis. Neighborhood codes are determined primarily by differences in sale prices, housing stock and/or geographical factors. In order to create a neighborhood code, the listed factors are considered and field inspections are conducted for each township as it is reassessed.
It is important to note that only properties located in the same neighborhood are compared to each other Go to my home page and you can find neighborhood maps under downloads or click (here).