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Anoka County City of Lino Lakes 19 Sal es Studies According to State Law, it is the assessor's job to appraise all real property at market value for property tax purposes. As a method of checks and balances, the Department of Revenue uses statistics and ratios relating to assessed market value and current sale prices to confirm that the law is upheld. Assessors use similar statistics and sales ratios to identify market trends in developing market values. A sales ratio is obtained by comparing the assessor's market value to the adjusted sales price of each property sold in an arms -length transaction within a fixed period. An "arms - length" transaction is one that is generated after a property has had sufficient time on the open market, between both an informed buyer and seller with no undue pre ssure on either party. The median or mid -point ratios are calculated and stratified by property classification. The only perfect assessment would have a 100% ratio for every sale. This is of course, impossible. Because we are not able to predict major events that may cause significant shifts in the market, the state allows a 15% margin of error. The Department of Revenue adjusts the median ratio by the percentage of growth from the previous year's abstract value of the same class of property w ithin the same jurisdiction. This adjusted median ratio must fall between 90% and 105%. Any deviation will warrant a state mandated jurisdiction -w ide adjustment of at least 5%. In Anoka County, we have the ability to stratify the ratios by style, age, q uality of construction, size, land zone and value. This assists us in appraising all of our properties closer to our goal ratio. Sales Statistics Defined We have the ability by using statistical analysis to test the accuracy of the assessment. We use th ese statistics to ensure equity between properties at the neighborhood, municipal and county levels. The Minnesota Department of Revenue also uses these same techniques to test for equity between counties. The primary statistics used are: Median Ratio: This is a measure of central tendency that is the midpoint of a group of sales ratios when arrayed from low to high. The median is a useful statistic as it is not affected by extreme ratios. Aggregate Ratio : This is the total market value of all sale pr operties divided by the total sale prices. It, along with the mean ratio, gives an idea of our assessment level. Within the city, we constantly try to achieve an aggregate and mean ratio of 94% to 100%