Value of property determined prior to recession
Message provided by Douglas County Assessor Teri Cox, guest editorial
The 2009 reappraisal and notices of valuation
On May 1, Notices of Valuation for the 2009 reappraisal will be mailed to all property owners in Douglas County. Every two years the assessor’s office revalues all real estate in the county as of an appraisal date set by state law. This year the date is June 30, 2008.
One way to think of an appraisal date is to ask what your property could have sold for on that date. Every reappraisal, we disregard the old valuations and start from scratch using an entirely new sales list. In other words, we aren’t allowed to adjust values up or down by a percentage, but instead have to analyze sales from a specific time frame –in the case of the 2009 reappraisal this was from July 1, 2006 to June 30, 2008.
The assessor’s office reviewed more than 22,000 sales from the study period to make sure that they were valid, open market transactions. Of that number, approximately 716 were single family residential sales from Castle Pines North, with sale prices ranging from a low of $272,000 to a high of $2,925,000.
Unincorporated areas of Douglas County within the Castle Pines area, including Charter Oaks, Beverly Hills Estates, Oak Hills, Surrey Ridge, and Surrey Ridge Estates accounted for 36 sales with sales prices ranging from a low of $290,000 to a high of $1,166,400. Castle Pines Village represented 360 sales with a low sales price of $415,000 to a high of $7,750,000.
On June 30, 2008 our economy looked very different than it does today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 11,350. The unemployment rate was 5.6 percent. While the June 30, 2008 economy no longer exists, Colorado law still tells us that we must value property as of that date. We cannot consider sales or market influences that occurred after June 30, 2008. Whether you own property in Douglas County or anywhere else in Colorado, the same dates apply because reappraisals are part of our state constitution.
For more information about the 2009 reappraisal and sales from the Castle Pines area, please visit the Douglas County Assessor website at: www.douglas.co.us/assessor, or phone our office at 303-660-7450.
Teri Cox was elected as Douglas County Assessor in November, 2006. She has served the citizens of Douglas County for more than 21 years through her leadership as Mapping Supervisor, Appraisal Deputy, Administrative Deputy Assessor, and Assessor.
