Rural property is valued on a different set of facts. A residence on ten or forty acres is priced on the house, the outbuildings, the water supply, the septic system, the access road and the acreage itself, and there are simply too few comparable sales in any given month for a median to mean anything. Sales are scattered across a large area and often months apart.
The transaction mechanics differ too. Well water quality and septic condition are usually addressed by conditions in the offer rather than assumed, mortgage lenders treat acreages more cautiously and often want a full appraisal from an Appraisal Institute of Canada designated member, and a buyer paying cash for land is common. Legal fees on a rural sale still run in the $800 to $1,500 range through a Saskatchewan lawyer.
Then there is what the seller built. A shop, a heated garage, corrals, a drilled well, upgraded power service and a renovated farmhouse are all real value and largely invisible to any automated estimate drawing on assessment data. Joel Dyck's hand-reviewed valuation counts the improvements and prices the property against the acreage sales that actually compare.