Schedule of Values for Pitt County

Ensuring Fairness in Property Taxes Through Accurate Assessment


The primary purpose of real property assessment is to arrive at a fair and just valuation (market value) of all real property for use in deriving property taxes that will be as equitable as is feasible given the time, staff and money available to the assessor.

The Schedule of Values, which by law must be approved by the Board of Commissioners, is a manual providing rates, value ranges, and guidelines for appraising  property at market value in Pitt County. It includes adjustments that may be used for various types of construction, adjustment for market conditions, and valuation schedules for land.

Market value as defined by the Machinery Act of North Carolina under G.S. 105.283, Uniform Appraisal Standards, is "the price estimated in terms of money at which the property would change hands between a willing and financially able buyer and a willing seller, neither being under any compulsion to buy or to sell and both having reasonable knowledge of all the uses to which the property is adapted and for which it is capable of being used".

To accomplish the goals of determining just and equitable values, the assessor must turn to mass appraisal methods and techniques based on solid appraisal principles. In mass appraising, as in any kind of appraising, the realities of the local market along with state and local laws must be considered. Also, fundamental to any mass appraisal system are knowledge, judgement and the ability to adapt a standardized system to the local market. A standardized system and method of handling both data and the application of the three basic approaches to value is necessary to achieve equalization and uniformity in the valuation process.

The Schedule of Values provides summaries and broad ranges of the parameters in the County’s Computer-Assisted Mass Appraisal System (CAMA). The rates and ranges in the Schedule of Values are effective January 1, 2024, and will stay in effect until the next revaluation(2028). Any changes or improvements made to properties in between this time frame will be appraised in accordance with the standards found in the below statutes.

  1. Approaches
  2. Article 13 of the Machinery Act
  3. § 105-283
  4. § 105-284
  5. § 105-286
  6. § 105-317

Three Basic Approaches

which may be used to arrive at a fair market value are summarized as follows:

Cost Approach

This approach consists of estimating the land value and the depreciated cost of the improvements to arrive at a value. Theoretically, the substitution principle is the basis for determining the maximum value of the property by this approach. The substitution principle assumes the value is equal to the cost of acquiring a substitution of equal utility assuming no cost delay is encountered.

Market Approach

This approach utilizes the application of prior sales data from the market and is also referred to as the sales or comparison approach. Use of this approach requires that the sales used should be analyzed to determine that the conditions of fair market value have been satisfied.

Income Approach

The two most common applications of this approach in mass appraising are the capitalized net income and the gross rent multiplier.

The use of any of the three approaches requires careful consideration to be given to:

  • The relevancy of the approach applied to the property under consideration.
  • The inherent strengths and weaknesses of the approach used.
  • The amount and reliability of the data collected.
  • The effect of the local market on the data collected.

Finally, it must be remembered, the true test of a mass appraisal system rests upon its acceptance by the assessor, the taxpayers and administrative review bodies such as the Department of Revenue and the courts.

The material contained in the manual is provided to enable the user to apply standard procedures to the mass appraisal of property. In certain cases, the procedures are manually implemented and controlled; in others, the highly sophisticated data processing and appraisal systems are available to assure standard methods are employed. The principle to be recognized is that of standardization of data and operations as a vehicle to achieving the goals of the appraisal system.