The New York State Office of Real Property Services (ORPS) is statutorily obligated to administer an equalization program in order to assure equitable property tax allocation among nearly 4,000 taxing jurisdictions in New York State, and to insure the proper allocation of State Aid to Education funds, among other purposes. Equalization seeks to measure the relationship of locally assessed values to an ever-changing real estate market. Each year, ORPS calculates equalization rates for each of the state’s more than 1,200 assessing units.

Equalization Rate

Is New York State's measure of a municipality's  level of assessment. This is the ratio of the municipality's total assessed value to the municipality's total market value. The municipality determines the assessed value and the market value is determined by the state. The formula is Total Assessed Value divided by Total Market Value equals Equalization Rate.

Residential Assessment Ratio 

This is determined by using the sales of residential properties, one, two or three family structures, annually in a certain time period in the assessment calendar. These sales after meeting certain criteria determined by New York State are then used in the following formula to create the municipality's ratio. Taking the Assessed Value divided by the Sales Price equals the Residential Assessment Ratio.  

Level of Assessment (LOA)

The Level of Assessment is simply the percentage of full value at which properties are assessed within a community. For instance, an LOA of 50% would indicate that assessments are half of the market value; an LOA of 100% represents a community that is assessing at full value.

2006 Residential and Equalization Rates