Neighborhood Price Trends and Property Assessments

Using MLS sales and price data, we’ve created a statewide map showing home price changes through 2024 in half mile ‘neighborhood-scale’ areas. This map is a useful snapshot of how property values are changing in a specific area for prospective homebuyers or sellers, but it is also a tool for current homeowners to evaluate the accuracy of their 2025 property tax assessment.

What the Map Shows:

The map is color-coded in half mile hexagonal areas to show the percentage increase (red) or decrease (teal) in the median sale price-per-square-foot of home sales in 2024.

Clicking on any of the half-mile hexagons will show the percent change in price-per-square foot and overall median sale price from 2023 to 2024 (and the number of sales used to calculate these).

In areas with a sufficient number of applicable transactions, the map also includes average real annual price appreciation and equity based on properties that have changed hands multiple times. (Learn more about real price appreciation.)

Heatmapping the Market:

This map provides a way to measure market intensity on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, showing shifts in property values through 2024 within a two-minute drive or ten-minute walk through your community.

We know that elevated mortgage rates meant more repeat buyers, all-cash buyers and those with generally higher budgets who are less sensitive to rates. Using price-per-square-foot and real price appreciation (where possible) help adjust for the changing pool of properties being purchased year-by-year.

For brokers, this provides a hyper-local snapshot of last year’s residential price trends, whether driven by changes in housing supply, rising or falling demand, or other trends impacting the neighborhood housing market.

Checking Property Tax Assessments:

This map is also a tool for REALTORS® to advise contacts and clients on their annual property tax assessment and whether they have a basis for pursuing an appeal.

Indiana has a market-based property tax system: Tax bills are based on assessed values, which in turn should reflect objective market value. Residential property assessments use real estate sales data to help adjust assessments to match market trends.

This map provides REALTORS® with convenient access to MLS data to compare with trending adjustments on assessments.

Keep scrolling past the map for more details on Indiana’s assessment process and how to use this resource to help homeowners understand their assessment and their chances of reducing their 2026 tax bills.

Change in Price per Square Foot, 2023-2024

Neighborhoods with price increases and price decreases.

Open this map full screen

Deeper Dive: Guiding Clients Through Their 2025 Property Assessment

Background:

Many Indiana homeowners have received their pay-2025 property tax bills (based on 2024 property assessments) along with the 2025 assessments that will be used to calculate their 2026 tax bills. These come as a Notice of Assessment (Form 11) from their county assessors or in a combined statement with their 2025 bills.

Property taxes have already been a hot topic this year: Governor Braun has signed significant property tax reform (Senate Bill 1) that increases homestead deductions and credits to provide tax relief for homeowners. (Learn more about Senate Bill 1.)

However, this doesn’t change the process used to determine taxable property values – a system rooted in a thirty-year old court battle over assessment fairness.

In 1998, the Indiana Supreme Court handed down a final ruling in the landmark Town of St. John v. Indiana State Board of Tax Commissioners, declaring that property tax assessments must reflect “objectively verifiable data to ensure uniformity and equality based on property wealth.”

This effectively pushed the state to a market-based assessment system in the early 2000s – the real estate market being the most objective measure of residential ‘property wealth’ as defined by sale price.

Trending: How do assessments reflect the market?

In practice, homes should be physically inspected every four years to collect information on physical improvements, structural additions and the overall condition of the property. But real estate sales and pricing data is also used to adjust assessed values according to market trends.

This was formalized as an annual process called “trending” starting in 2007; local assessors use home sales from the previous year to determine an annual adjustment based on price change for properties in a particular neighborhood.

These trending adjustments are supposed to help property assessments reflect the market and avoid the shock of large increases – before 2007, statewide assessments were only conducted at five-year intervals (and even these were sometimes delayed).

Assessors are supposed to identify at least five comparable sales within a neighborhood area and compare their assessed value to the actual sale price to calculate the market trend.

Here’s an example comparing 2024 sale prices to the initial 2024 assessments (based in part on 2023 sales data using the same process) to determine a trending adjustment for 2025 assessed values:

The trending factor for this neighborhood is 5% for 2025 assessments; the assessor assumes 5% market appreciation of homes in that area. Indiana’s statewide median sale price rose 4% from 2023 to 2024; real price appreciation tracked at a higher annual level, 6.9%, so this would be a fairly typical neighborhood in many parts of the state.

Because Indiana property taxes are paid in arrears, 2026 tax bills will be based on these 2025 assessments.

What is a “neighborhood?”

If a home wasn’t on the market recently and hasn’t been physically inspected as part of the four-year cycle, this trending adjustment may be the major factor in changing assessed values.

Assessors use state guidelines in defining ‘neighborhoods’ with comparable properties; home prices can change dramatically from block to block. What if comparable sales used for trending include homes that are appreciating faster because they are closer to a new park or trail, for example?

Mapping property value changes

This mapping tool provides sales data that REALTORS® can use along with your knowledge of local market changes to check these trending adjustments and help determine of a homeowner has been disadvantaged by a broadly-drawn assessment neighborhood or the inclusion of sales data that are otherwise not relevant.

REALTORS® are experts and advocates who can explain the basics of the property tax system and assessment process to clients. One way to help homeowners evaluate their assessment is simply asking, “Would you list (and sell) your home for that price?”

But if the assessment just doesn’t seem to match the market, REALTOR® can also show the value of access to the most comprehensive and accurate housing data.

Using the Map:

Step 1: Search for your address.
Enter the address in the search bar; the map will zoom to the area around this address.

Step 2: Select the neighborhood to view price change data.
Click or tap the area around your address. The change in price per square foot from 2023 to 2024 will be displayed along with overall median sale price and real price appreciation data (if available).

Step 3: Check for low number of sales.
In areas with fewer than five sales in each of the last two years, price data may not be reliable.

Step 4: Compare the assessment notice.
Homeowners will receive a Notice of Assessment of Land and Structures (Form 11) from their county assessor (or a combined statement with their tax bill); compare the 2024 and 2025 assessed values and read through any notations under the “Reasons for Revision of Assessment” section (“Annual Adjustment” may even be specified here).

Step 5: Consider the options.
If the change in assessed value is much different than the price per square foot change provided by the mapping tool, and can’t be explained by improvements to your property beyond routine maintenance, an appeal may be in order.

Next Steps:

Filing a property tax appeal starts at the local level by filing a Form 130 (Notice to Initiate an Appeal) with the county assessor; in most counties, an appeal must be filed by June 15th of the assessment year.

Indiana’s Department of Local Government Finance has posted a guide to the process here: https://www.in.gov/dlgf/appeals-property-tax