Ouray Real Estate Values

Despite Economy, Property Values Not Expected to Decline

OURAY – With the housing market in shambles, property owners in Ouray County might have hopes that their property value will drop after this year’s state mandated valuation and thus lowering their 2010 property taxes. Ouray County Assessor Susie Mayfield said on Monday that probably won’t be the case.

“A majority of Western Slope counties are expecting them [property values] to stay the same or go up” Mayfield told the Ouray County Commissioners at their meeting on Monday. “The Western Slope has not had major foreclosures like the Eastern Slope counties have had. Because of oil and gas, Mesa County is not seeing a drop is sales prices and neither are any resort communities.”

Mayfield told the commissioners in her report that officials from Western Slope counties are getting together and planning an informational campaign to notify property owners that they shouldn’t expect property values to decrease. Every odd year, county assessors across the state must perform a state mandated revaluation of every property within the county. The revaluation is based on an analysis of market sales during the timeframe of Jan. 1, 2007 through June 30, 2008.

Once the revaluations are complete, a Notice of Valuation indicating the change in actual value of a property will be mailed to its owner the first week of May 2009. This new value will be used in the calculation of property taxes owed in January 2010.

“Just because they are just sitting out there on the market, it doesn’t mean their values are going to drop,” she said. “We expect to get some phone calls.”

Mayfield said she is exploring various possibilities for informing taxpayers about this year’s revaluation and what to expect. Commissioner Keith Meinert said it might be worth mailing information to owners in Ouray County to make sure the process is clear.

“If you thought it would be helpful to do a mass mailing, I think it would be worth the expense to get the message out there properly,” Meinert said. “Anything we can do to explain the voodoo calculations that you all go through and that people should not anticipate seeing a reduction in property values and may even see an increase.”

Tax payers in Ouray County can expect the 2008 abstract of assessment and levies in their mailbox in the next few weeks.

Written by: Gus Jarvis of the Ouray County Watch

Posted by: Erin Eddy

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