Mr. Aupperle pointed to several
factors that he claimed detracted from the subject property’s value: (1) the
property is not visible from Cassopolis Street; (2) it has only a narrow
service road for access; (3) it borders undesirable properties; and, (4) it has
mounds of dirt and weeds that make it unattractive to buyers. While those
factors likely affected the property’s market value-in-use, Frontier needed to
offer probative evidence to quantify the degree to which they did so or to
otherwise show the property’s value. Mr. Aupperle did point to Mr. Tuff’s
estimate that it would cost $250,000 for building an access road to Johnson
Road, but he did not explain how Mr. Tuff arrived at that estimate. In any
case, the Assessor already applied a 50% negative influence factor to the
property, which adjusted the property’s assessment by far more than $250,000.
Mr. Aupperle also pointed to
listing agreements for the subject property. Where a property has been marketed
in a commercially reasonable manner without selling, the seller’s asking price
may at least tend to show the ceiling on that property’s market value. The
Board therefore turns to the subject property’s listing history.
The subject property was
listed at $1,300,000 for the entire 2010 calendar year. While that listing
might tend to show that the subject property was worth no more than $1,300,000
as of March 1, 2010, it does nothing to rebut the subject property’s assessment
of $866,400. Although reduced its asking price, that asking price did not drop
below the property’s assessment until November 2011. Other than Mr. Aupperle’s
conclusory assertion that the market collapsed in 2008 and had yet to recover,
Frontier did not explain how those reduced listings related to the property’s
market value-in-use as of the March 1, 2010 valuation date. While the Assessor
arguably lent some support to the notion that the market for commercial
property remained stable for the six or seven years preceding the Board’s
hearing, she also testified that she reduced the subject property’s assessment
in 2011 and 2012 to reflect market declines. On those facts, the subject
property’s list price in November 2011 and beyond has little or no probative
weight. See Long 821 N.E.2d at 471 (holding that an appraisal that
estimated a property’s value for December 10, 2003, lacked probative value in
an appeal from a 2002 assessment).
Mr. Aupperle’s vague reference
to single person or entity declining to buy the property for $600,000 similarly
lacks probative weight. He offered almost no details about the proposed sale
and similarly failed to explain how it related to the subject property’s market
value-in-use as of the relevant valuation date.
Mr. Aupperle next pointed to
two other properties located on Cassopolis Street. By themselves, sale prices
for other properties do not show a given property’s market value-in-use. But
when one analyzes those sales prices using generally accepted appraisal
principles, such as the sales-comparison approach, that raw data can be transformed
into a reliable value indicator. See generally, MANUAL at 13-14 (describing
the sales-comparison approach). In order to use a sales-comparison approach as
evidence in an assessment appeal, however, one must first show that the properties
being examined are comparable to each other. Conclusory statements that a
property is “similar” or “comparable” to another property are not probative of
the properties’ comparability. Long 821 N.E.2d at 470-471. Instead, one
must identify the characteristics of the property under appeal and explain how
those characteristics compare to the characteristics of the purportedly
comparable properties. Similarly, one must explain how any differences between
the properties affect their relative market values-in-use. Id.
Mr. Aupperle did little to
compare the other two Cassopolis Street properties to the subject property. At
most, he testified that both properties had frontage on Cassopolis Street. The
Assessor acknowledged at least some similarities between the subject property
and a carved-out portion of one of the two properties—the property at Cassopolis
and County Road 6. But she also asserted that the transaction Mr. Aupperle
relied on involved an atypically motivated seller and was therefore not a good
indicator of the larger property’s market value-in-use. Under those circumstances,
the fact that the Assessor used a carved-out portion of that larger property in
her own sales-comparison analysis does little to bolster Mr. Aupperle’s analysis.
In any case, Mr. Aupperle did
little to identify or account for any relevant differences between his
purportedly comparable properties and the subject property. Thus, his analysis
falls short of what the Tax Court contemplated in Long. Also, Mr. Aupperle’s
second sale (1635 Cassopolis Street) occurred on February 23, 2012— more than
23 months after the March 1, 2010 valuation date at issue in this appeal. As
already explained, Mr. Aupperle did little to explain how sales or listings
from 2012 related to the subject property’s market value-in-use as of the
relevant valuation date. For all those reasons, Frontier’s purportedly
comparable sales data has little or no probative value.
