Middlesex County tops SWO for residential assessment increases ... farmland values jump

The 2012 MPAC property assessment results are all in, and all regions of Southwestern Ontario fell below the provincial average of an 18.0% increase in residential property value between 2008 and 2012.

Across the region, the highest average increase was in Middlesex County—my new(ish) home—at 17.0%, followed by Grey (16.3%) and Bruce (15.8%) Counties and Guelph (15.5%), with Waterloo Region (15.3%) and Huron County (14.8%) close behind.

(In the MPAC announcement, Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk were lumped together with a range of 8.3% to 10.3% for the three. I used the mid-point for the graph.)

Windsor was at the other end of the scale with a 0.3% increase, followed by Sarnia at 1.8%.

In Ontario, the highest reported increase was in Timiskaming, where assessments were up an average 36.8%. But that doesn't come close to the increases for farmland:

The value of farmland has skyrocketed in Southwestern Ontario over the last four years, with the biggest increases coming in Chatham-Kent (65.6%) and Huron County (65.3%). The Brantford area (64.0%) and Lambton County (62.2%) were also right up there.