If you own a commercial property, most jurisdictions, including Washington, D.C., will utilize some combination of the three (3) primary approaches to real estate valuation. 1) An income approach, which values your property based on the income generated from leasing, less the expense required to operate the property. 2) There is also the cost approach, which determines the value of the land plus the replacement cost (less depreciation) of the structures on the land. 3) The final approach is the sales comparison study. This approach analyzes sales of comparable properties to determine the value of your property. For traditional owner-occupied residential properties like single family homes, condos, and townhomes, the sales comparison approach is fairly standard, while the income approach is most common for commercial and income producing properties.