Assessors predict sticker shock for homeowners

Metro mortgage, rents, taxes will rise with new property valuations

BY ELLIS ARNOLD EARNOLD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

is week, homeowners across the Denver area will be staring at numbers that may come as a shock: eir property values may have jumped by up to 45% — or even higher.

“We do ask property owners to take a good look at the notices they receive,” said Denver Assessor Keith Er meyer, urging homeowners to let their local assessor’s o ces know if they dispute the value they receive.

Driven by a costly real-estate market, home values — as calculated for property tax purposes — have spiked since the last time homeowners received notices of value two years ago. Since then, residential properties in the Denver metro area typically saw value increases between 35% and 45%, a group of assessors from across the Front Range announced April 26.

For owners selling their homes these days, the bump in home prices has been good news. But it also means owners are on the hook for higher property tax bills, Er meyer noted.

Public o cials are openly hoping homeowners will get relief from the state legislature, where lawmakers are expected to take action to lower property tax bills this year.

It’s a fraught equation, though, be- cause local governments depend on property tax revenue, and too much adjustment could threaten cuts to their services.

Property taxes partly fund county governments, but they also fund school districts, re and library districts, and other local entities.

Toby Damisch, who heads Douglas County’s property tax o ce, emphasized the urgent nature of the situation for homeowners and a ordability.

“If the state lawmakers don’t act immediately on this, then it will be a crisis, in my opinion,” Damisch, the Douglas County assessor, told reporters.

Not an isolated problem

Across Colorado, property values have risen signi cantly, Damisch said. In notably a uent Douglas County, residential properties saw increases between 30% and 60%, with a median of 47%.

Other metro-area counties have seen high spikes as well:

• In Denver, the median increase in single-family home property values is 33%, Er meyer said.

• In Je erson County, median single-family residential values increased by 37%, the county said in a news release.

• Arapahoe County’s assessor, PK Kaiser, announced the county will see almost a 42% increase in residential values.

• Broom eld saw a median value increase for single-family residential of 41%, according to

Remembrance program. e AntiDefamation League served as program convener, its 42nd year in that role.

Amer Randell, who teaches a Holocaust history class at RiseUp Community High School, helped arrange Galan’s talk in Denver.

“As a history teacher for more than two decades, there is nothing that can parallel learning from a primary source, especially from a person who lived this horri c era in our history,” Randall said. “I hope it gave (the students) a greater sense of empathy for something that happened to a fellow human being — feeling ‘othered,’ the feeling of extreme fear and cruelty — juxtaposed with his belief that all people can be good or bad, not to hate.” ere were times when Galan’s family, desperate for a good night’s sleep and a long way from home, wound up sleeping in the same room as German soldiers who didn’t suspect that they were Jews. Somehow, they got through those times undetected.

Galan told about going to a forced labor camp, and waking up one morning to the news that the camp had been liberated. He described the long journey he and his family took, on foot, into the mountains in unstable weather in attempts to escape the Nazis.

He recalled that when his family