Are You Overpaying Your Property Tax in the Cowichan Lake Area?
I checked every home sale in the Cowichan Lake area against what BC Assessment says each property is worth. Here's exactly what I found, and exactly how I found it.
The Areas Covered
This study covers three areas around Cowichan Lake:
- Town of Lake Cowichan
- Electoral Area I (Youbou and Meade Creek)
- Electoral Area F (Cowichan Lake South and Honeymoon Bay)
What Was Tested
Every arm's length residential sale recorded on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) across these three areas in 2025 was compared against that property's assessed value on the 2026 BC Assessment roll, which reflects market value as of July 1, 2025. 111 sales were tested in total: 68 in Lake Cowichan, 27 in Youbou and Meade Creek, and 14 in Cowichan Lake South and Honeymoon Bay (2 additional sales fall under Ts'uubaa-asatx First Nation taxing authority and are outside the scope of this study).
The Result
52 of those 111 homes, 47%, were assessed by BC Assessment at a higher value than what they actually sold for on the open market. The median assessment to sale ratio across all 111 sales was 99.6%, close to accurate on average, but that average conceals a real spread, individual ratios ranged from 52.5% to 170.1%.
How This Was Calculated
Assessment to Sale Ratio (ASR) is the property's 2026 assessed value divided by its actual MLS sale price. A ratio over 100% means the home was assessed for more than it sold for. A ratio under 100% means the opposite. This is not a theoretical model, it is a direct, sale by sale comparison between what a buyer and seller actually agreed a home was worth and what BC Assessment says it's worth.
What This Number Does Not Claim
This 47% describes the sales that occurred and were tested. It is not an estimate of how many total homes in these three areas are currently over-assessed, only sold homes were part of this sample.
See the Full Data
Every sale, every address, and every ratio behind this number is published in full, area by area: