When paying for an appraisal is worth it
A few hundred dollars against a multi-year saving — the arithmetic is usually clear either way.
A licensed appraisal is the strongest market-value evidence you can buy. It costs somewhere between $350 and $700 for a residential property, and for most appeals it is not worth it. Here is how to decide.
The arithmetic
The median successful Cook County appeal reduces assessed value by 8.4% — worth roughly $570 a year on a typical home at a mid-range rate. A reduction generally holds for the reassessment cycle, so call it $1,700 over three years.
An appraisal at $500 consumes about 30% of that, and only helps if it changes the outcome. Against a 23% county-wide success rate, that is a poor bet for an ordinary residential case.
When it is worth it
The sums are large. Commercial property, or a home assessed well above the ordinary range, where a reduction is worth thousands a year rather than hundreds.
You have no usable comparables. An unusual property — a converted building, a very large lot, something genuinely without peers — cannot support a uniformity argument, and an appraisal may be the only route.
You are going to PTAB or court. The standard rises, and a tribunal expects professional evidence.
You already have one. A refinance or purchase appraisal from the right period costs you nothing extra. Check the date carefully.
The property has a condition problem that comparables cannot capture — structural damage, a failed foundation, contamination. An appraiser can quantify it; a table of neighbours' assessments cannot.
When it is not
You have good comparables. A tight uniformity argument is free, uses the county's own numbers, and does not require anyone's opinion of value.
The record contains an error. Fix the error. An appraisal of a house the county has recorded at the wrong size is arguing the hard way.
You bought recently. Your closing statement is stronger than any appraisal, and free.
The date is the trap
Assessments are made as at a statutory valuation date. An appraisal dated after that, or well before it, invites the office to disregard it — and refinance appraisals in particular are dated whenever the loan happened, not when the assessor was looking.
What a useful appraisal contains
- The correct valuation date, stated explicitly.
- Comparable sales with visible adjustments — the reasoning, not just the conclusion.
- A statement of the property's condition.
- The appraiser's licence details.
The order to try things in
- Check the record for errors. Free, and the strongest kind of argument.
- Build a uniformity case from the county's own figures. Free.
- Use your own sale if you have a recent one. Free.
- Then consider an appraisal, if the sums justify it and the first three produced nothing.