Assessor Report Card

All 55 WV counties

How uniform and consistent is each county's residential assessing? This ranks counties by their Coefficient of Dispersion (COD) — the spread of assessment-to-sale-price ratios. Lower COD means similar homes are treated more alike. The IAAO target for residential property is COD ≤ 15.

How to read this fairly. These are real elected officials, and this is a measure of practice, not a verdict on any person. Uniformity (COD) — whether like homes are assessed alike — is the metric most attributable to the assessor's office. The level (median ratio, how close assessments sit to market) is confounded: West Virginia mandates a multi-year reappraisal cycle, and the 2020–2024 housing boom pushed nearly every county's assessments below market across the board. So a low median ratio reflects the cycle and the market, not assessor blame. See methodology below.
Counties ranked by uniformity (COD, lower = better)
# County COD (uniformity) Median ratio (level) Sales (n) Confidence (sample size) Eras
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COD ≤ 15 meets IAAO   15–20 acceptable   20–30 elevated spread   > 30 high spread. Median ratio is shown for context only and is not color-graded (level is confounded by the cycle/market).
Confidence reflects sample size, since a COD from a few hundred sales is far less reliable than one from tens of thousands: High n ≥ 1,000   Medium 300–999   Low 100–299.
Methodology & sources
  • Data. Time-matched residential sales-ratio study: each verified arms-length sale is compared to the property's assessed value in the sale year. A ratio below 1.0 means the assessment lagged the market.
  • COD (Coefficient of Dispersion). Average percent deviation of ratios from the median — the core IAAO uniformity measure. Lower is more uniform; the residential target is COD ≤ 15.
  • Level vs. practice. We present COD (uniformity) and reappraisal cadence as the assessor-attributable practice metrics. The level (median ratio) is confounded by WV's mandated reappraisal cycle and by the market, so we do not grade it.
  • Assessor attribution. Sales are attributed to whichever assessor served the county in the sale year, from verified tenure records (assessor_terms).
  • Grading gates (important). An assessor era is graded only if it spans at least 2 distinct sale years and has at least 100 attributable sales, and the current unsettled roll year (2025) is excluded from attribution. This prevents a known artifact: a single partial/current year measures the prior assessor's reappraisal against peak sale prices, which fabricates an inflated COD a new assessor could not have caused. Eras that miss these gates are listed as “not graded — insufficient data” rather than published with a misleading score.
  • Sources. WV statewide parcel & sales data; assessor tenures from verified public records. See the site methodology page for the full pipeline.