Longtime local Realtor Jon Wade said the Routt County notice of property valuation he received in late spring that showed the value of his home in the Fish Creek area was “spot on.”

Nevertheless, Wade talked with about 140 fellow homeowners in Routt County in May who thought their property valuations were too high. So, the broker-owner of The Steamboat Group set out to educate those homeowners. In the end, about 100 of those property owners submitted a valuation appeal to the county tax assessor.

Overall, almost 2,450 property owners across the county, or about 10% of property owners, submitted a valuation appeal by the June 8 deadline, said Routt County Assessor Gary Peterson. That is about three times more appeals than during a normal appeal year and the second most ever filed, with a high of 2,950 in 2009, Peterson said.

During typical years, some 50% of those appeals may result in the change of a valuation, Peterson said.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the massive changes with more people working remotely had a big impact on increasing home prices in Steamboat Springs, Wade said.

“Values in general did go up because people could spend more time in Steamboat,” Wade said. “It made sense for more people to buy, plus the interest rate was good, and the ski area making a lot of improvements makes property by the mountain more rentable and more valuable in general.”

Wade said about two-thirds of those property owners he assisted with information for their valuation appeal own townhomes or condos near Steamboat Resort. Peterson also confirmed that many of the overall appeals were received from what is affectionately called “condoland.”

The broker said those condo and townhome properties near the ski resort have gone up in price the most on average in the property types, but many owners in all property types across the county were surprised when they opened their notice of valuation.

Routt County Commissioner Tim Corrigan said property values in resort communities in Colorado experienced such a dramatic increase “that there was just a shock value with that level of increase in value.”

“Rural resort communities, in particular, have seen very significant increases in their valuations compared to state averages,” Corrigan said.

A key point of confusion for property owners appealing their valuation is that the current re-evaluation is based on a June 30, 2022, appraisal date, which was during the height of the pandemic-pushed real estate boom. If a home sold prior to June 30, 2022, the valuation must be adjusted as if all those early sales sold on June 30, 2022, Peterson explained.

That time adjusted valuation rate rose about 2.5% per month for a house in the county and about 5% per month for a condo near the ski resort from July 2020 to June 2022, Peterson said.

“It’s definitely more difficult because the percent change is so dramatically higher than years past, with three to four times higher than the typical increase,” Peterson said of the valuations.

County officials and real estate professionals continue to emphasize to home and property owners that assessed property taxes for 2024 will not increase at the same steep percentage as the property valuations.

The tax assessor said the most difficult issue for his team of seven property assessors is that new Colorado statutes decrease the time to respond to valuation appeals to three weeks after the submittal deadline of June 8. So, the work on 2,450 appeals needs to completed by June 30.

Although the assessor’s office mailed and posted online extensive explanatory information to answer property owners’ questions, Peterson said that did not seem to help owners’ appeal savvy due to the complicated process and the shock of higher-than-expected valuation. Many upset owners are mistakenly pointing to a wide variety of comps, or property sales comparisons, that were listed at lower pre-pandemic peak prices or do not match their home types close enough, Peterson said.

The department’s new by-appointment-only scheduling policy helped in that fewer property owners walked into the assessor’s office when they were “hot and heavy.” Still, Peterson said, “We had a handful of people who we had to ask them to leave, ask them to calm down.”

Wade is among multiple local real estate professionals who believe the county assessor’s office has done a good job of providing the most accurate valuations possible and trying to communicate the complex process to property owners.

“Gary did an excellent job providing info. (However) if you are not familiar with it, to the average person it’s just not in their wheelhouse,” Wade said. “I believe Gary and his team did the best they could, and they have a really tough job and really short time to do it.”