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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, Room 708
Seattle, WA 98104

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

TEL: 206-296-7300
FAX: 206-296-5107
TTY: 206-296-7888

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Glossary of terms for commercial parcels

DATA
Information expressed in any of a number of ways. "Data" is the general term for masses of numbers, codes, and symbols generally, and "information" is the term for meaningful data.  "Data" is the plural of datum, one element of data.

DIRECT CAPITALIZATION
Direct capitalization is the method used to convert net income from the property into an indication of property value using an overall rate developed from the market.  The method does not consider the land separate from the building as do the land and building residual techniques.

DISCOUNT RATE
The rate of return on a real estate investment.  The discount rate reflects the compensation necessary to attract investors to give up liquidity, defer compensation, and assume the risks of investing.  It is the rate of return required on total property investment to meet investment requirements.  The discount rate is the weighted average of the mortgage interest rate and the equity yield rate, weighted by the proportions of total investment represented by mortgage(s) and equity, and is often called the property's interest rate.

DISPERSION
The degree to which data are distributed either tightly or loosely around a measure of central tendency.  Measures of dispersion include the average deviation, coefficient of dispersion, coefficient of variation, range, and standard deviation.

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