-21-
Under the sales comparison approach, Mr. White valued the
land only, not the land and improvements. Mr. White identified
three sales of property to use as comparable sales, all of vacant
land located in or around Neligh or Oakdale, Nebraska, and all
purchased for special uses. These special uses included a
transformer site, fertilizer plant and storage, and commercial
sales and inventory storage. None of Mr. White’s comparable
sales involved agricultural land or pasture, even though
approximately half of the subject property was agricultural land
or pasture. Mr. White also did not include the May 1997 sale of
the subject property to petitioners through TRY, nor the sale of
the 210 acres of the retreat center property sold for $63,000 in
1996. Mr. White did not include the 1997 sale because he
considered the subject property sold for less than what it was
worth. Mr. White failed to explain, however, why he considered
the subject property sold for less than what it was worth in May
1997. We question this omission.
We are also concerned by Mr. White’s reasoning that the
prior sale of the subject property should not be included as an
indication of value. Mr. White’s subjective determination that
the property sold for less than it was worth is not sufficient to
disregard a prior sale of the exact property to be valued that
occurred only 17 months earlier. While property valuation is
admittedly inexact, Mr. White’s subjective determination to
exclude this particular comparable sale, that of the subject
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