As local property values continue to soar, Park County Assessor Pat Meyer thinks it’s time for state lawmakers to limit the tax increases that property owners can face each year.

“We cannot control the skyrocketing value of our property, but I believe we may be able to limit the tax increases with sensible legislation — and I’m continuing my efforts to do just that,” Meyer said.

The issue has taken on urgency amid a real estate boom.

In 2021, buyers spent nearly $294 million on Park County properties — spending $100 million or roughly 50% more than they did in 2019. During that two-year period, the average sales price of residential and commercial properties leapt from $262,000 to more than $376,000.

Property sales and values did jump in 2020, as more people moved in from out of state, “but not like this,” Meyer said.

As an example, one Cody area home that sold for less than $400,000 in 2019 fetched well over $800,000 last year. Another rural home that the assessor’s office had valued at roughly $700,000 sold for almost twice that amount.

Meyer has served in the assessor’s office for four decades, and he’s never seen anything like what’s happened in the past couple of years.

“Park County is a great place to live and the rest of the country seems to have discovered Wyoming, bringing a lot of purchasing power with them,” Meyer said.

Locals are paying more as well, he said, and inflation is also playing a big role.

On the one hand, rising property values can be good news for homeowners, who are gaining equity. It will also mean additional revenue for Wyoming’s K-12 schools and other local governments, although a sharp increase in oil and gas values is set to provide a bigger boost than rising land values.

However, the rising prices also mean it’s getting tougher to find affordable housing — and property owners will have to pay more taxes.

In the coming days, Park County property owners will receive their assessments for 2022. Those calculations set the taxable value of a property, and many owners will see increases of 25%-45%.

Some owners will find the hikes shocking, Meyer said. He finds the increases hard to accept, too — the value of his own home rose about 35% from last year — but his hands are tied. State law requires assessors to set fair market values using a uniform system that factors in comparable sales data, replacement costs and depreciation.

“We do not set the market — we follow it,” Meyer said.

While Meyer and his staff have tried to stay conservative with their assessments, there’s no avoiding the fact that sales prices that were once considered aberrations are becoming the norm in Park County.

The average residence in Cody went for less than $260,000 in 2018, but sold for nearly $379,000 last year (up 46%). In Powell, the average home sale jumped from about $200,000 in 2018 to nearly $270,000 in 2021 (up 35%).

“I wish I could have just inched assessed values up this year, but this happened so quickly,” Meyer said.

He wants to work with the Wyoming Legislature to pass legislation that caps the percentage that property values can rise in a given year. That would blunt large, unexpected spikes like this year’s.

“We can’t turn into a Teton County,” Meyer said, where the median home price recently topped $4 million. He suggests capping annual property value increases at somewhere between 5% and 15% for properties that remain substantially the same. Instituting such a limit might require an amendment to the Wyoming Constitution, but Meyer believes state residents would support such a change.

“We’ve got to protect ourselves a little bit,” he said.

Any property owners with questions about their assessed valuations are welcome to contact the Park County Assessor’s Office.