Best States for Property Appraisers and Assessors: California Tops Rankings as Northeast Leads on Pay

Across the data, the national picture for property appraisers and assessors provides a baseline: a median annual salary of $67,960, national employment of 57,070, and a projected national employment growth rate of 3.8%. Against this backdrop, the top-ranked states in LaborCove’s results show a range of combinations between compensation, employment counts, and Geography Scores. California leads the LaborCove state rankings with the highest Geography Score among the supplied geographies, a median salary above the national median, and the largest state employment count in the top 10. Other states such as Massachusetts and New Jersey post higher median salaries than California but lower Geography Scores and smaller employment counts. Within the top 10, Texas and New York stand out for their relatively large employment counts compared with several other ranked states, even though their median salaries are below some peers like Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Overall, the rankings illustrate that LaborCove’s Geography Score does not simply follow pay or employment alone, but reflects a combined view of the supplied metrics.

At the national level, property appraisers and assessors have a median annual salary of $67,960. This provides a reference point when evaluating whether a specific state’s median pay sits above or below the national midpoint for the occupation. National employment stands at 57,070, describing how many property appraiser and assessor roles are counted across all geographies in the supplied data. In addition, the occupation carries a projected national employment growth rate of 3.8%. This growth figure applies to the occupation nationally; no state- or metro-level projected growth rates are provided in this evidence. All state results in the remainder of this article should therefore be interpreted relative to these national benchmarks and the Geography Scores supplied by LaborCove, rather than as independent growth forecasts for individual states.

California ranks #1 in LaborCove’s state list for property appraisers and assessors, with a Geography Score of 84.90. Its median annual salary is $88,900, which is higher than the national median of $67,960. California also has an employment count of 6,380 property appraisers and assessors in the supplied data. This matches the stated largest employment market figure and is higher than the employment count reported for any other state in the top 10. The combination of the highest Geography Score among the listed states, a median salary above the national benchmark, and the largest employment count helps explain why California appears at the top of LaborCove’s state rankings for this occupation, even though some other states report higher median pay.

Within the top 10 states, several Northeastern locations show median salaries above both the national median and California’s level, but with smaller employment counts and lower Geography Scores. Massachusetts, ranked #2, has a median salary of $91,750, which is higher than both the national median of $67,960 and California’s $88,900. Its employment count is 1,100, which is smaller than California’s 6,380. New Jersey, ranked #3, posts a median salary of $92,390, which is higher than Massachusetts’s $91,750, while its employment count of 1,190 is also smaller than California’s. Connecticut, ranked #9, has a median salary of $86,050, which is higher than the national median but lower than the median salaries in Massachusetts and New Jersey. Its employment count is 630, which is smaller than the employment counts reported in California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. All three states have Geography Scores (60.63 for Massachusetts, 60.24 for New Jersey, and 47.94 for Connecticut) below California’s 84.90, underscoring that higher pay alone does not automatically produce the highest overall Geography Score in LaborCove’s methodology.

Texas and New York appear in the top 10 with relatively larger employment counts than several other ranked states, paired with median salaries that sit above the national median but below the highest-salary states in the list. Texas, ranked #4, has a median salary of $65,840, which is slightly lower than the national median of $67,960. Its employment count is 5,240, which is smaller than California’s 6,380 but larger than the employment counts in Massachusetts (1,100) and New Jersey (1,190). New York, ranked #5, shows a median salary of $78,060, which is higher than the national median. Its employment count of 2,860 is smaller than California’s 6,380 and Texas’s 5,240 but larger than those in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut. The Geography Scores—59.44 for Texas and 58.94 for New York—are below the scores in Massachusetts and New Jersey but above those in Connecticut and Colorado. This illustrates how the rankings in the middle of the top 10 reflect a trade-off between salary levels, employment counts, and the resulting Geography Scores.

Several other states in the top 10 combine median salaries above the national figure with moderate employment counts and mid-range Geography Scores. Washington, ranked #6, has a median salary of $83,710 and employment of 1,150. Minnesota, ranked #7, reports a median salary of $83,400 and an employment count of 1,380. Both median salaries are higher than the national median and lower than New Jersey’s $92,390. Their Geography Scores—53.31 for Washington and 51.15 for Minnesota—sit below those of Massachusetts and New Jersey but above those of Virginia and Colorado. Virginia, ranked #8, has a median salary of $76,080 and employment of 1,540, while Colorado, ranked #10, shows a median salary of $75,150 and employment of 1,060. Both Virginia and Colorado have median salaries above the national benchmark and lower than Massachusetts and New Jersey. Their Geography Scores, 48.11 for Virginia and 46.46 for Colorado, complete the top 10 range, which runs from California’s 84.90 down through Colorado’s 46.46. Together, these states show that mid-ranked locations in LaborCove’s list may pair salaries higher than the national median with employment levels that are smaller than those in the largest markets such as California and Texas.

The top 10 states for property appraisers and assessors demonstrate that LaborCove’s Geography Score balances several numeric factors rather than following any single metric. California, for example, ranks #1 with a Geography Score of 84.90 despite Massachusetts and New Jersey posting higher median salaries. For a practitioner comparing locations, national benchmarks—$67,960 for median salary, 57,070 for employment, and 3.8% projected national employment growth—provide a starting context. The state-level data then show how each geography compares on median pay, employment count, and Geography Score, without implying any specific hiring probability or local growth forecast. Users can therefore read these rankings as a structured quantitative summary of how the top states compare in the supplied metrics, and then layer on their own considerations such as personal circumstances and professional goals when thinking about relocation or long-term planning.

LaborCove’s state rankings for property appraisers and assessors are built from authoritative U.S. labor-market sources combined with LaborCove’s proprietary Geography Score methodology. For this article, the underlying occupational employment and wage observations refer to May 2025, while the report year is 2026. The national projected employment growth rate of 3.8% is a separate national occupational projection and is not an OEWS observation or a geographic forecast. For each state in this analysis, LaborCove uses the supplied median annual salary, employment count, and a Geography Score that summarizes how that location compares in the model. The Geography Score itself is a composite indicator; the specific weight of each input is not disclosed in this dataset, so this article focuses only on the observed rankings, scores, and individual metrics as reported. All geographic comparisons in this Insight are limited to the states and values explicitly supplied. National projections are discussed only as national context and are not assigned or implied for any individual state. Users should consider these rankings as one quantitative input alongside their own career priorities and circumstances.