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King County Department of Assessments

Setting values, serving the community, and promoting fairness and equity.

Department of Assessments

201 South Jackson Street,
Seattle, WA 98104

Office Hours:
Mon - Fri
8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

TEL: 206-296-7300
TTY relay: 711 or 800-833-4388

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Glossary of terms for commercial parcels

RATIO STUDY
A study of the relationship between appraised or assessed values and market values.  Indicators of market values may be either sales or independent "expert" appraisals. Of common interest in ratio studies are the level and uniformity of the appraisals or assessments. See also level of appraisal and level of assessment.

RECAPTURE RATE
The rate of return of a real estate investment;  the annual dollar requirement for returning to the investor a sum equal to the property value (improvements only) at the end of a given period of time. Recapture is the provision for returning to the investor a sum of money equal to the improvement value at the end of a given period of time.  The recapture rate may be selected by two methods:  1)  Economic-life method – requires a judgment as to the number of years the building will produce income and add value to the land.  2)  Market comparison method – obtains recapture rate by dividing net operating income after discount and taxes by the building value. 

REPLACEMENT COST; REPLACEMENT COST NEW
The cost, including material, labor, and overhead, that would be incurred in constructing an improvement having the same utility to its owner as a subject improvement, without necessarily reproducing exactly any particular chacteristics of the subject.  The replacement cost concept implicitly eliminates all functional obsolescence from the value given; thus only physical depreciation and economic obsolescence need to be subtracted to obtain replacement cost new less depreciation (RCNLD).

REPLACEMENT COST NEW LESS DEPRECATION (RCNLD)
In the cost approach, replacement cost new less physical incurable depreciation.

REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE
A sample of observations from a larger population of observations, such that statistics calculated from the sample can be expected to represent the characteristics of the population being studied.


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