#Summit County #Colorado
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| Michael Yearout Photography |
One buyer landed a 271-square-foot condominium at Copper Mountain for $85,000 in May 2017, making it Summit County's least expensive condo sale of the 24-month period from July 2016 to June 2018. On the high end, the most expensive home sold during the same timeframe was a 7,625-square-foot luxury home in Breckenridge's Shock Hill neighborhood that went for $6.1 million last December.
The Summit County Assessor's Office has wrapped up its state-mandated, biennial reappraisal process that ended on June 30 with 24 months of data. At a public presentation hosted by Land Title Guarantee Company last week in Frisco, officials from the assessor's office offered some of their findings and highlighted a few outliers, like the budget-friendly condo at Copper Junction and luxury home in Breckenridge.
Across the board, the assessor's office is seeing significant increases in home evaluations for all property types, including condos, townhomes, duplexes and triplexes, and single-family houses.
With that, the median adjusted sale price for a townhome was $649,500 from July 2016 to June 2018. Meanwhile, the median price for duplexes and triplexes was considerably cheaper at $666,500, and the median price for a single-family home outside the ski areas of Breckenridge, Keystone and Copper Mountain was $832,000. Inside one of those ski areas, the median price for a single-family home was over $150,000 more.
Increases in property evaluations are ranging from about 20-40 percent, according to Summit County Assessor Beverly Breakstone, who said most housing types fall somewhere in the 20 percent range.
"But it depends on where it is," she qualified. "There are just some differences that are location-driven."
As previously reported, the assessor's office has seen the most dramatic increase in Keystone condominiums, where the value of the units has skyrocketed about 40 percent over the last two years.
At the same time, condos in the Dillon Valley were up around 30 percent while condos in other Summit County locations increased by about 20 percent, according to Breakstone.
Altogether, over 13,000 condos exist in Summit County, making condos not just the most common housing inventory but the most common type of property in the county, commercial or residential, she said.
To determine property evaluations, the assessor's office relies on a statistical analysis of property sales during the two-year period. All sales must be confirmed by the office, which then has its personnel double-check property information, along with building permits and other influencers. Some of the work requires on-site visits.
Officials with the office will go out to a property to re-measure things like square footage and ensure they're aware of any changes that might affect value. After that, the assessor tries to identify other factors that could influence the evaluation. This could be riverfront land, a home's log construction or even the view. Again, location often comes into play.
"There are just a lot of things we consider to find out if that particular factor influences that value," Breakstone said, adding the key to updating property values is confirmed sales over the two-year period.
Essentially, the properties that have sold help inform the value of those that haven't, she explained. "One thing taxpayers need to understand is we base our data only on sales," she emphasized, adding that simply looking up the appraised values of neighboring homes doesn't help the process.
It's also important to say that just because someone's property value jumps 20 percent in the reappraisal process, it doesn't necessarily mean that person's property taxes will rise by the same rate.
While it's highly likely that rising property values could lead to a heavier tax burden on homeowners, exactly how much someone's taxes could rise — if at all — depends largely on the taxing entity and how that entity sets its mill levy in accordance with state law.
"It's a very defined process that each taxing entity has to determine what their budget is," Breakstone said. "People do get worried about (rising evaluations and property taxes), but it just doesn't mean that. There are too many limitations set by our constitution."
The assessor's office will mail out notices of value to homeowners on May 1. If someone disputes the assessment, there are numerous mechanisms to challenge the evaluation.
After receiving the notice, a homeowner can appeal the evaluation directly to the assessor's office by the June deadline. After that, homeowners can appeal to the county and again at the state level with the Colorado Board of Assessment Appeals after that. If a homeowner remains unsatisfied with an assessment, he or she has the option of taking their appeal to court.
