Skyrocketing property values fueling revolt
KETCHUM, Idaho – The three-bedroom home that Wendy Jaquet and her husband, Jim, bought for $65,000 in 1976 is undergoing its fourth remodeling and is now valued at more than $723,000.
But in the jargon of Sun Valley real estate deals, it’s still a “scraper.”
“If we were to sell our house, they would just scrape it off the lot and build a new one,” says Jaquet, a Ketchum Democrat and the House minority leader of the Idaho Legislature. “It’s crazy.”
Jaquet will be joining other members of the Legislative Council on Property Taxes for a hearing in nearby Hailey on Wednesday, part of a statewide series to gather comments on legislative strategies for a potential overhaul of the property tax system used to fund local services and schools. The first two hearings were July 27 in Coeur d’Alene and Sandpoint.
Record jumps in the assessed market values of homes across Idaho have triggered a nascent property tax revolt, with homeowners fearing the effect that skyrocketing values will have on property tax bills.
But sentiment favoring sweeping changes to Idaho’s statutory requirement for annual assessments based on “fair market value” have been building for years in Blaine County, home to Sun Valley resort and multimillion-dollar “Log Majals.” As national demand for recreational property and mountain resort lifestyles rises, so has the assessed value of property in this rural county of approximately 19,000 people.
This year, Blaine County’s overall private property value rose 21 percent from last year to a total of $9.7 billion. That’s more than four times the annual operating budget of the state government.
“People are coming in and asking why they are getting taxed for money they don’t actually see,” says Marisa Nelson, appointed earlier this year by Blaine County commissioners as the county’s property taxpayer advocate. “Homeowners are taxed on assessed value, but that value only means something if you want to sell it.”
Real estate has long been a hot commodity in the county’s signature resort-area communities of Sun Valley, Ketchum, Hailey and Bellevue. Open houses are scheduled when vacant lots go on the market and recently, a “scraper” home off the fairway of the Sun Valley golf course sold for $2 million and was leveled.
Even in the outlying communities of Blaine County, the rise in property values is rapidly accelerating, with residential property in the town of Carey 45 miles from Ketchum jumping 175 percent in value this year.
Such leaps may look great in an investment portfolio, but for many longtime Blaine County residents, the annual property tax assessments have become eviction notices.
“To a lot of people, it’s not an issue of what the value of their house is, they just want to keep living here,” says Jed Gray of Ketchum, president of the Sawtooth Board of Realtors. “I make a very good living and I paid $40,000 for the lot my house is on 20 years ago, but there’s not a chance in hell I could buy it today.”