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In the current Italian real estate market, estimates of the market value of rural properties are carried out by appraisers mainly using the single-parameter comparison procedure and, less frequently, the income capitalization method. To overcome problems of appraiser subjectivity and other issues related to these methods, and to gradually comply with real estate appraisal standards, this research paper aims to develop and validate a scientifically rigorous method. This article carries out a first attempt to apply the mixed approach based on the integration of Market Comparison Approach (MCA) and General Assessment System (GAS) to agricultural land, currently used only in the field of urban real estate appraisal. The study focuses on the first steps of this valuation procedure: choice of the parameters which characterise the market segment and identification of the land characteristics to be included in the procedure. These two steps are preparatory to the following phase concerning the estimate of marginal prices, which represents the core of the whole valuation procedure. In the current Italian real estate market, estimates of the market value of rural properties are carried out by appraisers mainly using the single-parameter comparison procedure and, less frequently, the income capitalization method. To overcome problems of appraiser subjectivity and other issues related to these methods, and to comply with real estate appraisal standards, this research paper aims to develop and validate a scientifically rigorous method. The Market Comparison Approach (MCA) is used as a starting point for a comparative multiparameter approach, which is currently only used in the field of urban real estate appraisal. This paper carries out a first attempt to apply the MCA to agricultural land, contributing an initial exploration of developing the proposed methodologies. Specifically, this paper reports the first steps that have been carried out in this line of research: choosing the parameters to identify the market segment; identifying the characteristics to include in the procedure for which to determine the respective marginal prices.

The Land Cadastre, as an inventory of all relevant real estate in a territory, and most importantly, as a national tax system is, or at least should be, the protagonist of fiscal, social and civil implications affecting the Italian context. According to unitary farmland incomes, the last revision dates back to 1978-1979, a period that no longer reflects the country’s current socioeconomic situation and does not consider the changes the land market has undergone over the years. Through the analysis of 183 purchases and sales of agricultural land in two districts in western Sicily, this research aims at verifying the adequacy or inadequacy of the current cadastral tariffs. Based on the prices surveyed and the cadastral farmland incomes, some indicators were constructed showing, on the one hand the absence of a strict correspondence between these two values and on the other hand the actual presence of fiscal inequality for all the crop qualities examined; and, consequently, the need for revising cadastral tariffs or for reforming tax system of Italian Cadastre by replacing tariffs with market values.