Assessor attributes much of $119M jump to revaluation of commercial properties
The valuation of property in Hamilton County rose by almost 4 percent in 2022, topping $3 billion for the first time ever.
Hamilton County Assessor Pat Sandberg posted the 2022 valuation totals for all taxing subdivisions last week, noting an increase of $119.3 million for a total of $3,050,655,891.
“A lot of the increase in value from last year to this year was the revalue of Aurora city commercial properties,” Sandberg explained. “I did the industrial subdivision, around the square, and all Aurora city out to the interstate. I kind of held my breath when I sent those letters out in June, thinking, oh, man, I’m going to have a whole lot of protests. We had 44 protests and three were withdrawn. That was just a process that needed to happen.”
The increase in value added up to a 3.9 percent increase, representing a significant percentage jump compared to recent years. A year ago, Sandberg reported a $31.6 million increase in total valuation, representing a 1 percent gain, while two years ago her August report showed a $19.4 million increase. Three years ago she posted a $79 million dip, which was the third consecutive year of decline at the time. Clearly, she observed, times have changed.
“The housing market is still hanging in there, though I know the refinancing has really dropped down (likely due to rising interest rates),” she said. “I think the housing market is still steady. I sure didn’t know I’d be over $3 billion this year, though some of that (rise in value) is because we revalued Mariposa, Turtle Beach, Timbercove, Lac Denado and Platteview Estates.”
Added to the growth in valuation in those housing subdivisions is the surge of new houses being built in Phillips, where Sandberg reported a noticeable upward trend.
“Ag land sales are also very strong,” she continued. “I had quite a few of them (sales) after my cutoff date of Sept. 30. The value of ag land was not adjusted for 2022, it just rolled over, but for 2023 that will be different because of the strong ag land sales I’ve had.”
In a News-Register interview in late March, Sandberg warned commercial property owners to be prepared for sticker shock, noting that some properties went up in value by as much as 100 percent.
“I think what’s going to happen is some of the commercial property owners are going to experience a little bit of a shock factor, much like the farmers have done over the years when year after year I had to keep raising that ag land value,” she said at the time.
Preparation had begun more than a year ago to have every commercial property in Aurora inspected and reappraised. Sandberg said she and her staff are not licensed commercial appraisers, which she noted is not unusual in smaller Nebraska counties, thus the work had to be contracted out. Central City-based Stanard Appraisal was hired to do the job for $52,000, which was paid out of the county’s Inheritance Fund.
“People in the city just worked great with Stanard Appraisal,” she said this week. “I didn’t have any complaints at all from anybody. It’s crazy that we only had 44 protests with three withdrawals, let me tell you.”
New growth
As for increased valuation attributable to new growth, a line item now required on her certification form sent to the state, Sandberg reported this year’s total at $36.2 million.
In comparison, new growth last year was reported at $19.1 million (see related chart), with a 10-year high of $74 million in 2014 and a 10-year low of $13.4 million in 2017.
Now that Sandberg has certified the values, she mailed that information this week to the various political subdivisions, which will use the data to establish tax levies as part of the budgeting process.
“That’s what sets the levy, and hopefully they won’t go crazy,” she said of pending tax levy requests by the county, city, school districts, villages and other taxing entities. “Here at the county level our actual levy will go down. It should, overall, but it depends on what people want to spend money on.”
Having met the deadline to post official 2022 valuation totals, Sandberg said her office mailed letters out to all the taxing entities last week and has already begun working on 2023.
“We’re done with 2022,” she said. “We’ve got our values and other than that I’ll help check the levies. We always have three sets of eyes look at those levies. Now we’re getting ready to do our pickup work for 2023, starting next week. So we’ll be out and about again, making sure our records are right. It’s an on-going process.”