New property values released Monday by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation show the average assessment of an Ottawa home rose only 3.6 per cent over the last four years, less than in most other Ontario cities.

Some people who own homes or land in places like Centretown, Rockcliffe Park, and Fitzroy Harbour will even receive notices in the mail that show a drop.

MPAC says it has assessed the average Ottawa home at $431,000 for 2016.

A 3.6 per cent increase over four years is a far cry from the last province-wide MPAC assessment in 2012, when the average notice people received showed a 25.9 per cent jump over 2008.

"What we saw in 2012 was Ottawa outpaced a good portion of the province," MPAC president Antoni Wisniowski told CBC News.

But now, homeowners in the 905 region around Toronto are the ones seeing their assessments rise about 40 per cent over four years. Even the average assessed values for cities like Thunder Bay, Hamilton and Kingston are rising more quickly than Ottawa's.

"Certainly we've seen in the last four years, in terms of the sales evidence, that the market has flattened," said Wisniowski of Ottawa.

MPAC president Antoni Wisniowski says Ottawa outpaced the province in the last round of assessments in 2012, but the market has flattened since then compared to other cities.

Condo values affecting citywide average

A sluggish condo market is also pulling down the citywide average for assessments.

"The single family homes have shown a steady increase, across most of Ottawa, of just under one per cent," said Andrew Loney, MPAC's director of valuation and customer relations for Eastern Ontario.

"Whereas the condo market has pretty consistently shown a decrease of anywhere from two to five per cent across Ottawa."

He points out new buildings that have gone up in the downtown core are making it especially hard to sell older units.

The average Ottawa condo has an assessed value of $216,000 in 2016.

What are assessed values in your neighbourhood?

The new assessed values for 2016 will be used to calculate a property's taxes from 2017 to 2020. Increases are phased in over four years, which represents only a rise of 0.9 per cent a year, for the average Ottawa home.

If MPAC reduces an assessment, however, the entire drop should be reflected in 2017.

Check out the map below to see how assessed values have changed in your neighbourhood, but keep in mind it doesn't mean your property taxes will increase or drop by the percentage shown.

Instead, some homes will likely pay slightly more and others slightly less, depending on how much above or below the city-wide average they find themselves. The total amount of tax money the city collects is unaffected by assessment changes.

Consultant predicts 'larger degree of error'

The stagnant growth comes as no surprise to Ottawa-area property tax specialist Glenn Lucas, who has been in the industry for thirty years.

But he's also not convinced that MPAC's assessments will be very accurate and is hiring extra staff to deal with complaints he expects.

"I think there will be a much larger degree of error this year than there's ever been," said Lucas.

Lucas says the Ontario government asked MPAC to start sending out property assessments in April, when it normally doesn't do so until October. Given that the property assessment is supposed to be the value of a property on Jan. 1, 2016, that gave MPAC far less time to do its work, Lucas suggested.

Some communities outside of Ottawa received their notices in the spring, so Lucas's firm has already been working on cases east and west of the capital.

"They're substantially off. We don't argue over a few dollars here and there," said Lucas.

He described one assessment in Arnprior that he had reduced by $100,000, because it was 25 per cent incorrect.

In another case, a property owner had two identical lots, side by side. The value of one increased by 50 per cent, and the other by 10 per cent, Lucas said.

MPAC says data stronger than ever

Wisniowski countered that MPAC got started early and did more "robust" work than ever to figure out Jan. 1, 2016 values.

"We've really worked hard to make sure that first and foremost the data was in really good shape on the inventory," he said.

Local MPAC teams have done more inspections of home renovations, and investigated more home sales that seem like they could be anomalies.

Property owners have 120 days to file a request that MPAC reconsider the value it has pegged on a property.

Commercial properties across Ontario won't receive their notices until October.