what is land and improvement assessment real estate? please help.

[Reynald Jean]

what is land and improvement assessment real estate?

I just got an MLS list of a couple properties from my realtor, but there are a couple of things that I don't understand, for example, LAND ASSESSMENT AND PROPERTY ASSESSMENT. the price for one of the house is 289,000 and that's the part I don't understand........

Taxes / Year:	$5,358 / 2017
		Assessment:	$27,040
		Land Assessment:	10,520
		Improvement Asmt:	16,520

please help. thank you.

[Steve Babiak]

In PA, assessed value has to be multiplied by a leveling factor set by the PA Department of Revenue to even be in the ballpark of what the market price is, so in most cases just ignore those for the purpose of setting a property value. If you were to buy a rental property, the value of the land on residential property isn't depreciated for income tax purposes, so you would be able to use the land value there to back out the part that does not factor into depreciation. How to do that properly should be discussed with your accountant.

The tax assessed value is used to set your real estate taxes, in case you are wondering.