Property values in most Denver neighborhoods held steady or even dropped from 2022 to 2024, according to the latest data released by the Denver’s Assessor's Office.
Keith Erffmeyer, Denver’s assessor, said it ends a decade-long trend of steadily rising home values.
“The last time I can remember anything flat-ish, much less a reduction, would've been 14 years ago in 2011,” he said. “Even in the [reevaluation] that we did in the midst of COVID, which would've been 2021, we still saw increases.”
Every two years, Erffmeyer’s office does a whole lot of math to calculate the values of homes, land and other property across the city. Property value is the basis for determining property taxes, which fuel a little bit of the city’s budget and a lot of Denver Public Schools’ bottom line.
This year, the assessed value for the typical single-family or row home dropped 1.6 percent from two years ago. A neighborhood-level analysis shows much of that reduction happened in less affluent areas of the city — places like Barnum and Montbello, which had witnessed some of the largest percentage increases in previous cycles.
But Erffmeyer said “reduction” isn’t really the way to classify this development.
“I would say the price of homes are still maintaining the highest they've ever been,” he told us.
Meanwhile, values in a few wealthier areas, like Cherry Creek, continued to grow.
Here’s what to expect in your neighborhood:
According to Erffmeyer’s office, Denver neighborhoods saw up to a 9 percent decrease in median home values since 2023. Areas that saw the greatest reductions tended to be on the city’s north and west sides.
Athmar Park led those decreases (8.7 percent), followed by Clayton (7.5 percent), College View (7.4 percent), North Capitol Hill (7.3 percent) and Civic Center (6.9 percent). Their neighbors mostly also saw drops.
Meanwhile, neighborhoods with the city’s most expensive homes saw their values continue to climb. Cherry Creek was among the areas with the highest increases, at 11.6 percent.
Denver’s DIA and Union Station neighborhoods showed the highest increases, but we’re taking that with a grain of salt, since they don’t contain a lot of single-family homes. (For you sharp-eyed readers: Yes, we need to dig in more on condos and apartment buildings.)
It’s notable that decreasing neighborhoods fall along Denver’s “inverted L.” In past assessments, many of those neighborhoods represented the highest increases in values across the city, a fact that made longtime residents rather nervous.
What does this mean for taxes?
The data shows that property tax bills should stay fairly steady next year, unlike the huge jumps that happened two years ago.
However, even if their home value is unchanged, homeowners could still see their property tax bills rise by a few hundred dollars next year due to the expiration of Colorado’s temporary statewide tax discounts.
And the overall drop in assessed values doesn’t necessarily mean that the city or the school district is losing money from their budgets. The city has added housing in the last two years, which adds more revenue to that tax base. Erffmeyer told us City Council can raise certain mill levies to offset drops in home values, within limits — that conversation likely won’t happen until autumn.
These values are used to determine tax bills for tax year 2025, which is payable in 2026. Final tax bills won’t be sent to property owners until the end of the year.
Erffmeyer said it’s hard to say, for now, what’s driving the change.
Property values are linked to the real estate market, which has been slowed by high interest rates since the Federal Reserve raised them to curb inflation in a post-pandemic world.
“I would add property taxes and insurance to that,” he told us.
The property values being sent out now were measured in 2024. Assessments are derived by analyzing actual sales in a two-year period.
But overall, Erffmeyer said he and his colleagues aren’t completely sure how to explain the drop.
“I don't think there wasn't a hugely discernible pattern to us,” he said. “There weren't any alarming trends.”
Still, this could be a reflection of shifting demand in our market, he said.
“As supply started catching up with the demand, post COVID … it was clearly an undersupply that met this equilibrium, and the market seems to be happy just staying where it's at,” he said.
The fact that Cherry Creek homes continued to rise in value, he said, is not surprising.
“Cherry Creek seems to have been immune to any bad news, whether it's commercial or residential, for as long as I can remember now,” he told us.
But “good” and “bad” news is in the eye of the beholder, Erffmeyer said. Some people will be glad to see their homes continuing to grow in value, while others will be glad to see some relief on their property tax bills. Erffmeyer said he’s hoping his office will have to field fewer property tax appeals after a record-setting year in 2023.
“It was crazy,” he remembered. “I mean, my therapist says to forget about it. But nonetheless, I am still trying to shake that off.”
You can search your home’s tax bill on the city’s newly revamped assessment website, where you can also file an appeal if you want a second opinion.
