Market value (DOF)

In assessment usage, market value is the Department of Finance's annual statutory valuation of a property — produced by the methods its tax class prescribes, income capitalization prominent among them for income-producing buildings. It anchors the assessment arithmetic, but it is not an appraisal: its purpose is a consistent tax base, and it can sit far from transaction value without being wrong on its own terms.

The distinction defuses a common confusion: comparing DOF market values to sale prices mostly measures the gap between statutory method and market behavior. The valuation trail is still useful — its year-over-year moves, its response to income filings, and its role as denominator in effective-tax comparisons all carry information when read as what they are.