Boulder Tax Assessments Flawed?

[Terrel L. Shields]

http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-...county-denying-property-tax-appeals-at-record

Is the system flawed when taking older sales and applying a blanket time adjustment?

 

[KHS445]

Looks like a heck of an opportunity for an appraiser that is willing to take the time to establish a data base of their own, to understand how the Boulder County valuation system works and to understand the complete appeal process. One of the main things the data base would need to include would be a history of sales/resales on houses going back say 10 years, information regarding any updates that occurred between sales, the property tax history of each property included in the study, etc. What one would need to show is the actual data vs. the numbers being used by the Assessing Department. After investing all the time necessary to build a strong data base, you would need to be prepared for the fact that the actual numbers may support the Assessor's numbers. Most homeowner's opinion of value varies whether they are looking at it as the seller or the tax payer.

As Detective Joe Friday use to say on the series Dragnet "The facts, just the facts mam".

 

[Mark K]

I think the answer is an obvious ''yes". Lower value homes often increase in value at a faster rate than higher value homes, at least in areas where there is plenty of competition for the higher value homes in new construction.

The real question is whether or not anyone can convince bureaucrats to willingly kill their cash cow? My guess is that its not going to happen until/unless the state legislature gets involved and forces them to come up with a more accurate system. That's what it took in this state, and still, finding an assessed value that vaguely resembles market value (outside of the cookie cutter subs) falls into the 'blind squirrel finding an occasional nut' category. Most assessor offices have access to the MLS and still they can't get it right.

Luckily, the direction of the error by their incompetence generally favors the property owner, reducing the chance that they (assessors) will have to defend their values.

 

[Rlong]

Boulder is the "San Francisco" of Colorado. 900 SF bungalow in town $600,000 - $800,000 in college rental condition. Land ratios are going to be like 95%! I generally won't even take (residential) orders there, due to the complexities and nuance of their residential market. (CG with 20+years). More power to the appraisers who specialize in Boulder!