Mr. Tridle offered 52 photographs to support his claim that the subject buildings were in poor condition and had little value. While the condition of the buildings might affect the subject property’s market value-in-use, Mr. Tridle needed to offer evidence to quantify that effect or at least to show a likely range of values for the property.
To do that, Mr. Tridle pointed to two attempts to sell the property at auction. In both instances, the highest bid was less than the property’s $86,900 assessment. Auction sales raise at least some questions about whether the requisites for a sale to be considered a valid indicator of a property’s market value are present. For example, there may be questions about whether the property was reasonably exposed to the market and whether the seller was typically motivated. But a well-advertised auction held after other marketing attempts have proven unsuccessful might dispel those concerns in any given case.
Mr. Tridle offered almost no information about the first auction, but he did offer an advertisement and some other evidence from the second auction. And that auction was held after Mr. Tridle’s attempts to sell the property through a listing were unsuccessful. The Board need not address whether a sale from the second auction might be probative of the subject property’s market value-in-use, however, because Mr. Tridle did not actually sell the property; he rejected all the bids. Thus, the auction does not show the subject property’s market value-in-use. Put in terms used by the Manual, the bid did not suffice to replace the utility that Mr. Tridle received from the property. See MANUAL at 2 (“True tax value may be thought of as the ask price of a property by its owner, because this value more clearly represents the utility obtained from the property, and the ask price represents how much utility must be replaced to induce the owner to abandon the property.”).
In any case, the first auction took place more than a year before the March 1, 2010 assessment date, and the second auction took place more than one-and-a-half years after that date. Mr. Tridle therefore needed to explain how the bids related to the subject property’s market value-in-use as of March 1, 2010. At most, Mr. Tridle offered a vague statement from the auctioneer indicating that average housing prices had fallen 19% between 2001 and the end of 2011 and that a price index had declined from its all-time high somewhere in 2008. That does not suffice to relate either bid to the subject property’s market value-in-use as of March 1, 2010.
As explained above, however, Mr. Tridle, also listed the property for sale from October 30, 2009 to June 7, 2010. While he did not sell the property, and apparently did not get an offer above $70,000, that listing history is at least some evidence that the property was worth no more than Mr. Tridle’s asking price. But Mr. Tridle’s lowest asking price during that period was $89,000, which is more than the $86,900 assessment from which he has appealed.
Because Mr. Tridle did not offer probative evidence to show that the subject property’s market value-in-use was less than the property’s assessment, he failed to make a prima facie case for reducing that assessment.
