Here, the Petitioners contend that their property was over-valued in 2011 based on the property’s purchase price and its appraised value. Matkovic testimony. According to Mr. Matkovic, the Petitioners’ purchased the property under appeal on August 25, 2010, for $567,000. Id.; Petitioner Exhibit 1. The purchase price of a property is often the best indication of the property’s value. See Hubler Realty Co. v. Hendricks County Assessor, 938 N.E.2d 311, 314 (Ind. Tax Ct. 2010) (the Tax Court upheld the Board’s determination that the weight of the evidence supported the property’s purchase price over its appraised value).
In addition, the property appraised for $547,000 as of September 9, 2011. Respondent Exhibit 2. The appraiser is an Indiana Licensed Residential Appraiser who certified that he prepared the appraisal in accordance with the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practices. Id. An appraisal performed in conformance with generally recognized appraisal principles is often enough to establish a prima facie case that a property’s assessment is over-valued. See Meridian Towers, 805 N.E.2d at 479.
Both the sale of the property and the property’s appraisal fall within six months of the assessment date at issue and are therefore sufficiently probative of the property’s market value-in-use for the 2011 assessment year. Thus, the Board finds that the Petitioners raised a prima facie case their property was over-valued for the March 1, 2011, assessment date.
Once the Petitioners raised a prima facie case that their property was over-valued, the burden shifted to the assessing official to rebut the Petitioners’ evidence. See American United Life Insurance Co. v. Maley, 803 N.E.2d 276 (Ind. Tax Ct. 2004). To rebut or impeach the Petitioners’ case, the Respondent has the same burden to present probative evidence that the Petitioners faced to raise its prima facie case. Fidelity Federal Savings & Loan v. Jennings County Assessor, 836 N.E.2d 1075, 1082 (Ind. Tax Ct. 2005).
Here, the Respondent did not dispute that the Petitioners purchased the property on August 20, 2010, for $567,000. Garoffolo testimony; Respondent Exhibit 7. Ms. Garoffolo merely argued that the property was “bank owned.” Therefore, she argued, the sale was invalid and should not be used to establish the subject property’s market value. Garoffolo testimony. The Respondent, however, presented no evidence to support its contention that the purchase price was somehow not a valid sale or that the bank would sell a property for less than its market value. Similarly, Ms. Lewis testified that the Petitioners’ appraiser chose an invalid sale as one of the comparables and made inadequate adjustments to the comparable sales. However, Ms. Lewis failed to present any evidence that the appraiser was biased or that the appraisal was flawed. It is well within an appraiser’s expertise to choose sales it deems most comparable to the property under appeal and apply adjustments to those comparable properties to value the differences between them. “Open-ended questions” and “conclusory statements” are not sufficient to rebut the Petitioners case here. See Hometowne Associates, L.P. v. Maley, 839 N.E.2d 269, 278 (Ind. Tax Ct. 2005) (“In none of these exchanges, however, did Mr. McHenry offer evidence rebutting the validity of Mr. Rassel’s calculations. Rather, he merely asked open-ended questions or made conclusory statements”). The Respondent, therefore, failed to rebut or impeach the Petitioners’ evidence that their property was over-valued for the 2011 assessment year.
The Respondent also testified that the assessor’s office conducted a comparative market analysis which showed that comparable properties in the subject property’s area sold for an average of $156 per square foot of living space. Garoffolo testimony. Applying the $156 per square foot value to the Petitioners’ property, Ms. Garoffolo argues, results in a value of $770,000 for the property. Id. The Respondent, however, failed to present any probative evidence identifying the properties used in the analysis or how the differences between the properties were valued or that applying the average price per square foot to the Petitioners’ property reflected the property’s market value-in-use in 2011. Statements that are unsupported by probative evidence are conclusory and of little value to the Board in making its determination. Whitley Products, Inc. v. State Board of Tax Commissioners, 704 N.E.2d 1113, 1118 (Ind. Tax Ct. 1998); and Herb v. State Board of Tax Commissioners, 656 N.E.2d 890, 893 (Ind. Tax Ct. 1995). Thus, the Respondent failed to rebut the Petitioners’ prima facie case with its “comparable sales analysis.”
Both the property’s purchase price and its appraised value were submitted as evidence of the property’s value in 2011. Petitioner Exhibit 1 and Respondent Exhibit 2. By seeking a value of $547,000 for their property, however, the Petitioners implied that the appraisal was the better indicator of the property’s value. Matkovic testimony. But an appraisal represents an estimate of a property’s value based on the opinion of an appraiser. The purchase price of a property is not an estimate, but rather an actual sale. In this case, the property’s purchase price provides direct evidence of how the buyer and seller valued the utility of the property needed in order for the seller to abandon the property. While the appraisal provided some justification for a lower valuation, the Board finds that there was insufficient evidence to persuade it that the Petitioners’ purchase price was somehow flawed. The Board therefore finds that the Petitioners’ purchase of the subject property for $567,000 is the best evidence in this appeal and gives it the greatest weight.
