EL PASO COUNTY — Evidence of the hot real estate market in El Paso County will be showing up in mailboxes of property owners during the first week of May. "There's no doubt in my mind folks are going to get some sticker shock," said El Paso County Assessor, Steve Schleiker. Property valuation notices are going out and nearly every property owner in the county will see an increase to their property value.
“It’s a huge sellers market in the entire county, but most certainly down south,” said Schleiker. Property values are mapped showing some areas with value increases around 10%, others 20%, marked in red there are areas like the Security-Widefield with property value increases of 30% or more. "These properties, they're getting into bidding wars, where you have buyers coming to the table with ten, 15, 20 thousand above asking price."
Rising sale prices, raise the value of all houses in the neighborhood."Usually there's an association with taxes going up as well,” said Schleiker.
Property taxes will increase, but he explains that the new assessed value is not the single factor for determining someone’s property tax.
It is used in an equation that figures the tax. There are several hundred tax districts in the county, and each has a different tax rate.
There are also restrictions on tax increases through laws like Colorado’s TABOR amendment. It means someone with a 30% property value jump, likely won’t face the same increased percentage for their property taxes. Give or take a few percentage points, most property tax increases will be around 10%.
El Paso County does offer a courtesy property tax estimate at the bottom of new valuation notices. It is an estimate that could change with official tax notices.
If someone feels their new property value is off, they can ask to see how it was determined and dispute it. “We can help you out and we can go through the appeal process” said Schleiker.
