15-07-2025
Bernalillo County properties see increase in value
BERNALILLO COUNTY, N.M. (KRQE) – Some Bernalillo County property owners could be in for sticker shock when they get their tax bills this year. This, as the county assessor catches up on years of uncompleted property assessments.
'On average, we had about a 76% increase in the values of our commercial properties,' says the owner of Alien Sigman Real Estate Group, Lance Sigman. He is one of the many commercial property owners who have seen an increase in the value of their properties, and high values can mean higher taxes.
'There's a trickle-down effect that's not just property taxes, but all these other costs that I've mentioned, they all build up. They all multiply to then impact the small business, which in turn impacts the consumer,' says Sigman.
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These higher property values come as counties in New Mexico kick up efforts to evaluate all properties accurately. 'We're doing a better job than was previously done before,' says Bernalillo County assessor Damian Lara.
He says it may seem like a dramatic change, but it's the result of their office following state law to calculate values. 'So we knew that many non-residential, particularly commercial properties had been undervalued for over 10 years,' Lara says.
His office, prioritized residential assessments over commercial properties, as they dealt with years of staffing shortages. But now, with the office finally at full staff, Lara says they're catching up.
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He says of the 20,000 commercial properties they assessed, a little less than half saw an increase in value. But NAIOP New Mexico, which represents commercial real estate owners, says some of those amounts were shocking.
'There's a lot of folks who are deeply concerned and frustrated when they get a letter that says their property has gone up 704%. That is not something that can be absorbed in a single year,' says Rhiannon Samuel, Executive Director of NAIOP New Mexico.
Assessor Lara says while property valuation is one factor in determining property taxes, a value increase does not always lead to a tax increase, and there are other factors as well. 'If the state, the county, all of the municipalities, the school board, all of the other taxing authorities, they typically ask for a little bit more money each year than they did last year,' says Lara.
For residential properties, there is a cap preventing property taxes from increasing more than 3% per year. Commercial properties do not have any such cap.
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