The Data Advice product from BC Assessment (BCA) provides value assessments and sales information for properties in British Columbia. Two types of data files are available to UBC researchers:
- REVD (Revised Roll): annual report including property information and valuation for all properties from the completed roll year, including changes made by the Property Assessment Review Panel (PARP). Produced once annually. The REVD file includes information for each property's three most recent sales. REVD files can be downloaded from Abacus.
- MONTHLY: information for properties that changed during the monthly reporting period, including sales completed since the most recent annual report. Produced 12 times per year. Monthly files are not in Abacus but are available upon request (contact jeremy.buhler@ubc.ca)
The data reflects what is entered into BCA’s database. Data is provided through sources of field collection by BCA employees, or through other corporations such as LTSA or the Ministry of Finance.
The Commercial Inventory Extract and Residential Inventory Extract contain additional information for every building or part of a building in the areas covered. These reports are produced quarterly.
The BCA provides data in XML and TXT format. To make the large Data Advice REVD files more accessible UBC Library converts each to a series of CSV files and a SQLite database that includes the corresponding Commercial and Residential inventory extracts. Both the original files and the transformed versions are available in Abacus for each year, along with notes about the transformation process.
Important note
The BC Assessement SQLite files which contain the REVD files and the Inventory Abstracts (residential, commercial) do not necessarily have all data from the same date.
Inventory abstracts post-date some of the REVD data sets. Because of this, Information about the content and provenance of the data within any particular SQLite database can be found by examining the metadata table.
Where analysis is required of properties where the desired information is available only in the inventory abstract, it is recommended that users carefully read the applicable user guides paying particular attention to build dates vs effective dates.
In some cases it will not be possible to obtain characteristics of properties for a particular year if the effective or build dates postdate the production of the REVD file. For example, a building present in the 2016 REVD file but with an effective date of 2018 would have the inventory extract show the characteristics of the property as of 2018, which may affect analysis.
Inventory extracts are added as a convenience because they are often used despite not necessarily having an exact temporal match. (2024-07-26) |