County officials across Colorado are busily inspecting the size, quality, and whatever else is considered in determining property values. This happens every odd year.
This spring, owners will be able to see if their values have changed at all. The reappraisal is underway, and trends are emerging already.
Mark Chapin is the Eagle County Assessor. When property owners there get their “notices of value” on May 1, he hopes they remember that the value they’re looking at was assessed over the summers of 2014 to 2016. In other words, it will not reflect the value of their property as they’re sitting there, looking at their mail.
Nonetheless, Chapin thinks property values will go up in Eagle County. They’re on track to recapture what value was lost in the recession. This is mostly being driven by property valued at less than a million dollars. The market for properties that are more than a million dollars looks pretty flat, Chapin said. The super-rich aren’t gobbling up property in Eagle County, and Chapin isn’t entirely sure why.
In Pitkin County, Larry Fite is the chief appraiser at the assessor’s office. Generally speaking, he’s not expecting anything too different from years past. That said, Pitkin County is diverse -- in addition to Aspen, it includes places like Redstone and Thomasville -- so it’s difficult to characterize the whole county, Fite said. It really depends where you are, but it’s not as if Aspen is having any trouble with the buying and selling of high-end property.
