Manning, Mary-Ellen v. Board of Assessors of the City of Peabody (July 13, 2026)

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
APPELLATE TAX BOARD
MARY-ELLEN MANNING 	v. 	BOARD OF ASSESSORS OF
THE CITY OF PEABODY
Docket No. F350977 	Promulgated:
July 13, 2026
This is an appeal filed under the formal procedure pursuant to G.L. c. 58A, § 7 and
G.L. c. 59, §§ 64 and 65 from the refusal of the Board of Assessors of the City of Peabody
(“appellee” or “assessors”) to abate a real estate tax assessed against Mary-Ellen
Manning (“appellant”) for fiscal year 2024 (“fiscal year at issue”).
Commissioner 	Bernier 	heard 	this 	appeal. 	Chairman 	DeFrancisco 	and
Commissioners Good, Elliott, and Metzer joined him in the decision for the appellee.
These findings of fact and report are made at the request of the appellant pursuant
to 831 CMR 1.34.
Mary-Ellen Manning, Esq., pro se, for the appellant.
Susan Antonellis, Assessor, for the appellee.
FINDINGS OF FACT AND REPORT
Based on testimony and documents admitted into evidence during the hearing of
this appeal, the Appellate Tax Board (“Board”) made the following findings of fact.
On January 1, 2023, the valuation and assessment date for the fiscal year at issue,
the appellant was the owner of an 8,490-square-foot parcel of land improved with a four-
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unit rental property with an address of 80 Lowell Street (“subject property”). For the fiscal
year at issue, the appellee valued the subject property at $575,800 and assessed a tax
thereon at the rate of $9.12 per $1,000, in the total amount of $5,294.69, which included
a Community Preservation Act (“CPA”) surcharge. The appellant timely paid the tax due
without incurring interest. On February 1, 2024, the appellant timely filed an abatement
application with the appellee. On February 9, 2024, the appellee denied the appellant’s
abatement request. On May 8, 2024, the appellant seasonably filed an appeal with the
Board.1 Based on these facts, the Board found and ruled that it had jurisdiction to hear
and decide this appeal.
The appellant presented her case through her testimony and the submission of
documents. According to its property record card, the subject property is an “old style”
structure, built in 1792, of grade-C construction, and in average condition. The subject
property has a total living area of 1,787 square feet that is divided into four rental units,
with three units being studio/efficiency rooms and one unit being a one-bedroom
apartment. Each unit has one bathroom. The appellant testified that, while the units are
separated from each other, the subject building is essentially a rooming house, as the
subject property has one shared meter for gas and other utilities. The appellant testified
that the subject property resembles a “chicken coop” with its small rooming units. The
appellant offered pictures of the interior of the subject property to demonstrate that the
rooming units are dated. She further testified that each unit is very small, which prohibits
1 While the Petition was stamped as having been docketed by the Board on May 10, 2024, the envelope containing
the Petition bore a United States Postal Service postmark of May 8, 2024. Pursuant to G.L. c. 58A, § 7, the Board
considered the date of postmark to be the date of filing.
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a tenant from having much furniture. The appellant testified that the appellee had not
inspected the interior of the subject property.
The appellant further testified that the subject property is located in the business
district of downtown Peabody near City Hall and the fire station. It is on a highly trafficked
street as well as undesirably located across from a liquor store that draws much drive-by
attention. The property record card includes a notation for “traffic” and an accompanying
ten-percent deduction for the land component of the subject property’s assessed value.
According to the property record card, the appellee valued the subject property
under the cost approach. The appellant, however, contended that the valuation should
consider the subject property’s earning potential. She further testified that, because of
their small sizes, the units cannot command more rent than what she charges. The
appellant submitted an income-and-expense report for the subject property, indicating a
total of $4,280 in monthly rent for the four units, which includes all utilities and one parking
space per unit. The subject property includes two additional parking spaces, which the
appellant rents to the neighboring property for an additional $60 per month of income.
After accounting for the subject property’s actual expenses, the appellant contended that
a gross-rent multiplier would have to be as high as 11 to achieve the subject property’s
assessed value, rather than what she considered a more appropriate gross-rent multiplier
of 4 to 7. The appellant opined that, when using a more appropriate gross-rent multiplier
and then applying a five-percent discount, which she assumed was the appellee’s
valuation methodology, she derived a value for the subject property of $411,000.
The appellant also developed a sale-comparison approach to value the subject
property. Her analysis consisted of three purportedly comparable properties that sold
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between January 2021 and September 2022. These properties contained living areas
from 2,160 square feet to 6,752 square feet, as compared with the subject property’s
1,787 square feet, and consisted of rental apartments of four, five, and eight units. These
purportedly comparable properties sold for prices from $642,000 to $1,200,000. 	The
appellant calculated the sale value per square foot of living area as well as the assessed
value per square foot of living area for her comparison properties and demonstrated that
the subject property had a higher per-square-foot assessed value than these other more
spacious properties located in less congested areas. The appellant further complained
that the subject property had the highest assessed value of living area per square foot for
all four-to-eight-unit apartments in Peabody, and yet it was the smallest property per living
area. The appellant used the average assessed value per square foot for her three
purportedly comparable properties and extrapolated a value of $427,120 for the subject
property.
Considering all her evidence, the appellant’s opinion of value for the subject
property was $411,000 for the fiscal year at issue.
The appellee presented its case through the testimony of Assessor Susan
Antonellis, who offered the requisite jurisdictional documents, and presented a rebuttal of
the appellant’s evidence. Assessor Antonellis testified that, during the requisite market
time for the fiscal year at issue, rental homes consisting of three units in the city were
selling for an average of $748,000 as compared with the assessed value of $575,800 for
the four-unit subject property. She further pointed out that one of the appellant’s
comparable-sale properties that sold for $1,000,000 in September 2022, while listed in a
different zone, is only four buildings away from the subject property. Assessor Antonellis
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maintained that the assessed value of the subject property reflects the disparity between
it and more spacious apartment buildings and also considers the subject property’s less
favorable business-district location.
Assessor Antonellis further explained that properties with smaller living areas are
assessed at a higher per-square-foot value than properties with larger living areas, such
that it is not appropriate to simply use an assessed per-square-foot value from a larger
property to calculate the value of a smaller property. Assessor Antonellis concluded that,
in her opinion, the subject property’s assessed value reflected its fair cash value for the
fiscal year at issue.
Based on the evidence of record, the Board ultimately found and ruled that the
appellant failed to meet her burden of proving that the subject property was assessed for
more than its fair cash value for the fiscal year at issue. The appellant’s per-square-foot-
value comparison relied on sale and assessment values for purportedly comparable
properties but lacked adjustments for key differences between those properties and the
subject property that affect fair cash value. The analysis thus lacked probative value and
was unpersuasive. Moreover, as Assessor Antonellis pointed out, the appellant’s analysis
failed to consider an accepted valuation principle, which is that, all else being equal,
smaller properties command a higher value per square foot than larger properties. The
Board thus found that the appellant’s unadjusted square-foot-value analysis lacked
probative value.
The Board also did not find persuasive the appellant’s gross-rent-multiplier
analysis. Unlike the income-capitalization approach that has long been relied upon by the
Board, the appellant’s gross-rent-multiplier analysis failed to account for important
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market-supported value indicators, particularly a capitalization rate, as well as a thorough
analysis of projected income and expenses.
On the basis of the evidence presented, the Board found and ruled that the
appellant failed to meet her burden of proving a fair cash value for the subject property
that was lower than its assessed value for the fiscal year at issue.
Accordingly, the Board issued a decision for the appellee.
OPINION
Assessors are required to assess real estate at its fair cash value. G.L. c. 59, § 38.
Fair cash value is defined as the price on which a willing seller and a willing buyer will
agree if both are fully informed and under no compulsion. Boston Gas Co. v. Assessors
of Boston, 334 Mass. 549, 566 (1956). “The burden of proof is upon the petitioner to
make out its right as [a] matter of law to [an] abatement of the tax.” Schlaiker v.
Assessors of Great Barrington, 365 Mass. 243, 245 (1974) (quoting Judson Freight
Forwarding Co. v. Commonwealth, 242 Mass. 47, 55 (1922)). In appeals before the
Board, a taxpayer “may present persuasive evidence of overvaluation either by exposing
flaws or errors in the assessors’ method of valuation, or by introducing affirmative
evidence of value which undermines the assessors’ valuation.” General Electric Co. v.
Assessors of Lynn, 393 Mass. 591, 600 (1984) (quoting Donlon v. Assessors of
Holliston, 389 Mass. 848, 855 (1983)).
In the present appeal, the appellant complained that the subject property’s
assessed value per square foot of living area was higher than the per-square-foot sale
and assessment values of more spacious rental properties in the subject property’s
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vicinity, including those outside the congested business-district zone. However, the
appellant’s analysis lacked adjustments to her purportedly comparable properties’ sale
prices for the many attributes that affect fair cash value, including construction quality,
condition, and parking availability, as well as size and location. See, e.g., New Boston
Garden Corp. v. Assessors of Boston, 383 Mass. 456, 470 (1981) (“Once basic
comparability is established, it is then necessary to make adjustments for the differences,
looking primarily to the relative quality of the properties, to develop a market indicator of
value.”). The Board found that failing to adjust the sale prices and assessed values of her
comparable properties to account for differences between them and the subject property
that affect fair cash value rendered the appellant’s analysis ineffective for establishing the
fair cash value of the subject property for the fiscal year at issue.
Moreover, the appellant’s analysis failed to consider the principle of diminishing
returns, also known as economies of scale, which holds that as unit size increases, the
per-square-foot value decreases. See Appraisal Institute, THE A PPRAISAL OF REAL E STATE
172 (15th ed., 2020) (“Generally, as size increases, unit prices decrease. Conversely, as
size decreases, unit prices increase.”); see also Boquist v. Assessors of Lincoln, Mass.
ATB Findings of Fact and Reports 2014-704, 715 (“[T]he appellant failed to take into
consideration the well-established principle of diminishing returns with increases in unit
size. The subject property’s prime lot was significantly smaller than those of his
comparison properties, and it was therefore logical that it would be valued at a higher
value per square foot.”).
Finally, 	the 	Board 	found 	the 	appellant’s 	gross-rent-multiplier 	analysis 	to 	be
unpersuasive. The appellant developed her analysis by considering the actual income
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and expense figures for the subject property and extrapolating a gross-rent multiplier,
which she deemed to be too high. This breakdown is not a convincing analysis that the
Board relies upon for determining the market value of income-producing property, as it
fails to account for market factors, particularly a capitalization rate. See 45 Rice Street
Realty Trust et al. v. Assessors of Cambridge, Mass. ATB Findings of Fact and Reports
2007-1269, 1328-29. Instead, the Board has long relied on the income-capitalization
approach, which applies a capitalization rate to a market-derived net operating income to
determine not a property’s actual earnings but its earning potential on the market. “It is
the earning capacity of the real estate, rather than its actual income, which is probative
of fair market value.” Pappas v. Assessors of Brookline, Mass. ATB Findings of Fact
and Reports 2006-665, 675 (citing Assessors of Quincy v. Boston Consolidated Gas
Co., 309 Mass. 60, 64 (1941)).
Based on the foregoing, the Board found and ruled that the appellant failed to meet
her burden of proving that the subject property was overvalued for the fiscal year at issue.
Accordingly, the Board issued a decision for the appellee in this appeal.
THE APPELLATE TAX BOARD
By: ___________________________________
Mark J. DeFrancisco, Chairman
A true copy,
Attest: ________________________________
Clerk of the Board
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