Rotorua's home owners are not impressed by the valuations, with one resident, Heather Carston, saying she is "furious" about her valuation.
She said her home was now worth about $50,000 less than what she bought it for.
However, a Rotorua real estate agent says the rating value doesn't necessarily mean the price of a property on the market will drop - something people who are buying or selling should understand.
But Mrs Carston said banks used this valuation as an indicator.
She said she would be making an objection to council about the valuation and she knew other home owners who would be doing the same.
Rotorua District Council rates manager Murray Ramage said the Rotorua property market had responded to the same factors influencing values nationally and the changes were in line with other districts around the country.
Since 2008, there had been a global financial crisis and other negative influences had been impacting on different market sectors.
Mr Ramage said the residential market had come off the boil and there had been a significant drop in the volume of house sales. Overall, however, values had shown only a small decrease.
The values in lakeside holiday homes, he said, had remained reasonably strong. Records showed some landlords were quitting rental properties because of a lack of residential investment.
These moves had resulted in values in these situations dropping by more than the average.
The lifestyle property market tended to follow the trends of the residential market, while the values for lifestyle blocks are similar to the residential market and pastoral property values in the district are influenced by the dairy sector, he said.
Mr Ramage said the new valuations would not come into effect for council rates purposes until the start of the 2012/13 financial year (July 1, 2012) but the changes in property value have no effect on the total amount of rates revenue collected by the council.
Property owners can lodge an objection if they believe their new property valuation has not been correctly assessed.
Information on the objection process will be included with the new valuation notices being mailed out next week. Objections will need to be lodged by November 14.
Phil Hereford, from Professionals McDowell Real Estate, said the rating valuations would not change the price that properties sold for - that, he said, would remain up to the buyer and the seller, who would agree on a price.
"The market is the market."
He said if a rateable value for a property dropped $20,000 that didn't mean it would sell for $20,00 less, which he said was difficult for home owners and buyers to understand and was something real estate agents had to explain every time the revaluations were made.
