Property values are on the rise in the Rural Municipality of Hanover.

The RM of Hanover has received its latest reassessment figures. It shows an overall increase of 3.3 percent across the municipality. This increase is since the last reassessment in 2014.

Breaking that down a little more, property values on the residential side saw a very small increase of .4%. Yet, on the agricultural side, property values have gone up by more than 14 percent on average.

"Certainly there are farms, mostly in the northern and northwestern area of the RM that have gone up significantly in value," explains Don Dowle, Chief Financial Officer. "Some in the south and southwest are a little bit down."

Dowle admits some of this new data came as a bit of a surprise.

"On the residential side, no, we saw a bit of a softening coming and were expecting it," says Dowle. "The farm assessment increase, a tiny bit of a surprise I guess I'd say, a little higher than what we thought."

Hanover's figures are different from what came out of Steinbach last month. The average value of single-family homes in the city was down 1.5 percent, while the value of apartment blocks was up 4.2 percent and condo values were up 1.5 percent.

Dowle says the changing property values are driven by market demand.

"There's so many variables, of course, that drive market demand," notes Dowle. "We think there's some great communities within Hanover and so they are desirable areas to be and so that might drive a little bit higher demand, that's a personal opinion."

According to Dowle, reassessment is a big piece that goes into determining taxes. Dowle suggests it would be reasonable to think that for a property below the average assessment increase, that if the municipal budget stays the same, they would likely pay less in taxes. However, he says it is much too early to say what this means for next year's budget.