If you didn't purchase the house and shortly thereafter use it as a rental, then yes, the assessor's website is an excellent tool to determine fair market value for the property and the land. Most county assessors have property cards that are available online for free. You’ll be able to find the breakdown of land, improvements (house) and total value. This is a good source to use.
Some assessors have assessed values that are much lower than the market value so when you look at your property card information, make sure you are using market value if it's different that the assessed value.
When you see the property card, somewhere on there will be the
land value, improvement value and total value. It will tally like this for
example, $15k (land value) + $95k (improvement value) = $110k Total value.
In our example, you would enter $110k for the fair market value
and $15k for the land; TurboTax will do the rest of the math.
To find your property card,
google the following: [your county] {your state] property tax
records. If you lived in Montgomery County, Maryland, you would search for
‘Montgomery County Maryland property tax records’. Look for your county
assessor’s office in the first few links. When you get to the assessor’s page,
look for something like ‘Search Records’. You should be able to search by
owners name or address.
