New Ipswich land valuations: What you need to know
New land valuations for property owners in 18 local government areas, including Ipswich, are due for release in March 2019 by the Queensland Government Valuer-General.
Ipswich is home to more than 81,000 rateable properties.
State issued land valuations and council rates have been linked for more than 70 years, however it is not always understood how the state government’s valuations are calculated and used, especially their role in determining rates.
Any change to land valuations does have a flow-on effect for councils and ratepayers but does not necessarily mean rates will increase or decrease by the same percentage.
New valuations present a unique set of challenges for all councils in calculating the rate in the dollar for ratings purposes.
This can mean future reductions in the rate in the dollar to compensate for large increases in valuations. A system of rate capping and valuation averaging may also be used in some circumstances to minimise rate increases from one year to the next.
The big challenge for any council is often the large difference in increases across the entire local government area.
There are always pockets of high, low, and sometimes no increase in land value which can result in above average rate increases as well as potential for some decreases.
All land valuations are based on either the unimproved value (rural land) or the site value (non-rural land). They are not always what the real estate market values the land or house and land.
It simply means the value of the land before any building or other improvements have taken place.
Importantly, rates are not the sole source of income for councils. For example in Ipswich rates will account for $202 million or 53 per cent of the total revenue in the 2018-2019 budget.
The Queensland Government Department of Natural Resources and Mines has a comprehensive website about statutory land valuations.
