Frequently Asked Questions

Find Property Value

Tax Estimator

No, you only have to sign again for homestead if you move from the current home that has homestead into another home.

Your DD214 - discharge papers need to be recorded in our Recorder's Office, then sign the military exemption form in the Assessor's Office.

The assessor finds out about these changes through building permits that are filed with the local city hall or the county and through property owners notifying us of an improvement.

According to State Law, foreclosures are not considered to be "good" sales and are not used to determine the assessed value. They are considered to be a "forced" sale, in which the bank was forced to sell the home. If the foreclosed property was not left in normal condition, you may consider notifying the Assessor's Office so that an appraiser may walk through the home to determine the value.

Several factors can change the value of your assessment. Home improvements, such as building a garage, building a deck, kitchen or bathroom remodeling, finishing the basement, etc., may change the assessed value of the home. Supply and demand may also change the value.

Market value of a property is an estimate of the price that it would sell for on the open market on January 1st of the year of assessment. This is sometimes referred to as the "arms length transaction" or  "willing buyer/willing seller" concept.

The Assessor generally uses three approaches, Market Approach, Cost Approach, and Income Approach.

Market Approach

Market approach is to find properties that are comparable to yours which have sold recently. Local conditions peculiar to your property are taken into consideration. The assessor also uses sales ratio studies to determine the general level of assessment in a community, in order to adjust for local conditions.

Cost Approach

Cost approach is an estimate of how many dollars at current labor and material prices it would take to replace your property with one similar to it. In the event improvement is not new appropriate amounts for depreciation and obsolescence would be deducted from replacement value. Value of the land then would be added to arrive at the total estimate of value.

Income Approach

Income approach is used if your property produces income such as an apartment or office building. In that case, your property could be valued according to its ability to produce income under prudent management; in other words, what another investor would give for a property in order to gain its income. The income approach is the most complex of the three approaches because of the research, information and analysis necessary for an accurate estimate of value. This method requires thorough knowledge of local and national financial conditions, as well as any developmental trends in the area of the subject property being appraised since errors or inaccurate information can seriously effect the final estimate of value.

If you find that there are inaccuracies with your assessment, you have several options.  First, you can contact the Assessor’s Office at the Jasper County Courthouse.  Secondly, you can click on this link and fill out the information & click submit.  We will receive an email noting the changes.  The office will review both avenues of notification and determine if the changes need to be made.  An appraiser from the assessor’s office may need to walk through the property to obtain accurate data.

The State of Iowa requires that all real property be reassessed every two years on the odd numbered year. At that time, studies of current market value, sales ratios and economic trends of the local market will  determine whether your assessment should change. If your property has  any other change it may be reassessed more often. For example, if you  build a new garage, it will be assessed for the following year whether it is an odd number year or not.

No, the Assessor raises or lowers the values of property according to the market value of real estate or in the case of agricultural land, according to productivity and CSR.

Assessments are set January 1st of each year, while the tax levies (tax rates) on these assessments are not set until July of the following year. (Example, the assessment notices from April 2011 were for the January 1, 2011 assessment. Tax levies for these values will be set in June of 2012 based on what the different taxing authorities budget in March and April 2012 for the next fiscal year of July 2012 - June 2013.)

The taxing authorities you pay property taxes to are listed at the bottom of your tax statement each year, along with their budget information and a breakdown of how much you are paying to each taxing body.

If there is any change to the assessed value of your property, you will receive an assessment notice on or before April 2nd of the year of the change. The taxes on the new assessment will not be reflected until September of the following year.

Before protesting your value, ask yourself these two questions:

1. What is the actual market value of my property? 
2. How does the value of my property compare to similar properties? 

After asking these questions, if you still do not agree, you are able to protest the value. You have two options.  First, there is an informal period from April 2 – April 25th where you can contact the Assessor’s office and ask for an informal review.  The office may request an inspection of the property based on the request. The Assessor’s office is not required to do an informal review, each request is looked at individually.  The second option is to file a protest to the Jasper County Board of Review. 

During protest times, are available in the Assessor’s Office or can be found here. To access the protest form online, please select your property, and then scroll to the link for the protest.  Again, protests may only be filed April 2 – April 30th with the Assessor’s office so links to the forms will not be active for the rest of the year.  The Board of Review will then review your assessment and determine whether the assessed value is fair. If, after review, you still do not agree with the assessed value, you may choose to appeal the case by filing in district court or with the Property Assessment Appeal Board.