West Chicago: Commercial Valuations

Executive Summary

The Cook County Assessor’s Office’s statutory duty is to estimate the market value of property and then produce assessments in accordance with those estimates. The CCAO is confident that the 2024 reassessment of West Chicago Township commercial properties reflects an in-depth and professionally researched valuation methodology. 

Most commercial properties generate income from rent, and so the CCAO uses the industry-standard income approach to mass appraisal of commercial real estate, supplemented with sales analyses. Commercial property assessments are calculated by determining a property’s use, estimated income, market-level vacancy, collections loss, and expenses. Applicable real estate operating expenses include property taxes, insurance, repair and maintenance costs, and property management fees.

The property tax rate in the City of Chicago was accounted for in operating expense ratios.

The CCAO uses unloaded capitalization rates when deriving market values for properties.  The cost of real estate taxes is included in the operating expense ratio, which eliminates the need to load the capitalization rate.

To learn more about how commercial valuations work, see the full guide to commercial valuations

How Commercial Properties Are Valued

Commercial and multifamily property owners can locate their property on a methodology worksheet below that contains the data used to assess their property.


West Chicago Township and the 2024 Reassessment

West Chicago is home to 7,168 multi-family and commercial properties. 

 

2024 is the first scheduled reassessment of West Chicago since its last reassessment in 2021. 

 

The 2024 reassessment is an opportunity to ensure that property assessments mirror the market and that property taxes are fairly divided among all properties. 

 

Reassessments conducted in 2024 will affect the second installment of property tax bills for Tax Year 2024, issued in 2025. The effects of this reassessment on an individual’s property tax bill are impossible to predict based on just one property’s change in assessed value. Each property’s share of the overall property taxes for a taxing agency’s district depends on its share of the total assessed values of all properties in that district. Assessments throughout the other townships in the City of Cook County will affect how property taxes are distributed among property owners throughout the City. 

 

A typical Cook County property’s taxes contribute to a dozen taxing districts, all listed on the property tax bills issued by the Cook County Treasurer.


Methodology Worksheets

Below are the methodology worksheets for each income-producing PIN (Property Index Number), class 300 and above, in West Chicago Township. The Assessor’s goal in publishing this data is for property owners to understand the approach to the mass appraisal of their income-producing property.

There is a Summary tab and a separate methodology tab for each property group. 

Methodology Worksheets

About this file:
This data was used to produce initial valuations mailed to property owners. It does not incorporate any subsequent changes to a property’s class, characteristics, valuation, or assessed value from appeals. This data is provided as-is to provide a snapshot of the CCAO’s 2024 valuation of income-producing properties.

Filing an Appeal
If you believe there is an error in the estimated value of the property, you can file an appeal until April 17, 2024. Appeals can be filed online.

Questions?
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