To the editor:

Our property valuations in Hoisington have gone up big time per the Barton County Appraiser’s Office in our appraisal notices just mailed. My house at 716 N Oak Street in Hoisington went up over 26% (a $44,190 increase). Several others that I’ve looked at went up over 20% with some going up over 42%. The National Association of Realtors said that the median home prices went up only 1.3% from January 2022 to January 2023. Forbes said that existing home sales dropped by .7% from December 2022 to January 2023. They are expecting a 5% drop in home prices in 2023 due to mortgage rates being over 6%.

Barton County’s property taxes are already one of the highest in Kansas. How can the Appraiser’s Office raise any home prices in this economy? Our county appraised value on our house was already over any expected sale price in 2022. Apparently, there are a lot of homeowners working to appeal these appraisals as the Appraiser’s Office schedule is full through March 28th and this is only the second day after the appraisals were mailed out.

I’ve looked at home value estimates from several different sites and ALL of them were well below our Barton County Appraisal values for 2023.

Why on earth, in this economy, should our property appraisals be raised in 2023?

A very concerned citizen

Jim Loesch

Hoisington