Colorado Land Buying Questions Video #1

In this video, Felicia answers a bunch of your Colorado land buying questions! See what questions get answered in video #1!

From the video:

Hi there I’m Felicia, co-founder and co-owner at Compass Land USA.

Today we are going to get a bunch of your Colorado land buying questions answered!

So someone on my team pointed out that there are a lot of really great questions being left in the comments of our videos, and how great it would be if I could do a video to answer the questions, so we’re going to do just that. If you have questions for us about one of our videos, make sure you leave a comment! I want to keep this Q&A series going.

Q1: Colorado Counties with Low Property Taxes

Ok so first up. A comment from Jake asking “Do you have any counties you recommend where you can buy residential and commercial without insane property taxes?”

Well, Jake, I’ve got something special for you, actually 2 things. The first one is a website called property-taxes.org. This website is an awesome free resource for you to use to gauge the average property taxes by state.

Jake since you left this comment on a Colorado video of ours, let’s look specifically at Colorado data. So jumping over to the website here, http://www.tax-rates.org/colorado/property-tax, the first thing you’ll see is this map. The red hues are higher numbers, higher taxes.

This data includes all property taxes, OK? So if you’re only looking at vacant land, you can expect it to be less than the average value for that county. If you’re looking at a house or commercial, it might be more than the average tax value.

You can use the map to find different counties that you’re interested in investing in, or you can scroll down the page here to see the average values listed out by county.

Ok Jake so the second thing for you is another website, it’s called smartasset.com . This is another website that will show you the property taxes by county in Colorado.

lf you scroll down the page here you’ll see this table, and it’s great because it’s got the effective tax rate. The effective tax rate is the amount that you actually pay each year, divided by the value of the property.

For example, if the effective tax rate for your county is 0.55%, and your property is valued at $20,000. You’re paying 0.55% of $20 grand, so you’re paying a thousand dollars in property taxes a year. The tax rate could change every year, it could change every 5 years, that varies by state. I think it’s the same for property valuation as well. I seem to recall in Colorado property is valued in 2 year cycles, but I’m not 100% sure.

So Jake you can use either of these resources to take a look at the lowest tax rates by county in Colorado, and start your search from there. Taking a quick look it seems like Gilpin and Jackson counties have some of the lowest tax rates in the state. Hopefully, this helps you with your land search! (If you’re looking for some cheap counties to buy Colorado land, this might help you. :))

Q2: Collecting Rain Water on Your Colorado Property

Ok, next question, Skyjin left this comment on one of our property tour videos, “but can you collect your own rain water?”.

Believe it or not, it’s illegal in some states and areas to collect rainwater. Colorado used to have a state ban against residential rain barrels, they overturned that in 2016, I believe. It was a couple of years ago, anyway.

It’s important to note that this isn’t the same as water rights. Collecting rain water in barrels does not constitute a water right. I think for residential areas, you can use up to 2 rain barrels, with a limit of 110 gallons.

You’re not supposed to use this water for drinking or other indoor uses. So Skyjin to answer your question, yes you can collect your rain water and you can do up to 110 gallons at a time.

Q3: Do Colorado Properties come with Rights?

Next question, Makabruddah asked: “Hello, do all your properties that you sell have a list of the “rights”, or do we still use a title company? Thanks.”

Ok Mak so when you ask this what comes to my mind in terms of “rights” is

• water rights
• timber rights
• mineral rights

Now, generally, our properties do not come with any of these rights. In fact, for most properties, we assume our properties do not have these rights.

These rights can be really messy and hard to figure out if they’re still with the property or not, and most often, they’re not. Mineral and water rights in Colorado, very unlikely they’re with the property. If they are, that property will probably be incredibly expensive. Timber rights are also unlikely, but this one is more hit or miss.

We do not guarantee the presence or absence of these rights with any of our properties. So Mak as an example let’s say you purchase a property from us and we close through title. You could ask the title company at this time to perform a mineral rights search and a water rights search. They would be able to tell you with certainty at the time of closing whether or not the property has the rights you’re wondering about.

So the short answer to your question is No. Our properties do not have a list of rights included. Not something we focus on, given the likelihood of their existence and present-day connection to the property.

Ok! So I hope you guys enjoyed that Colorado Q&A session number 1! I thought that was kind of fun and hopefully Jake, Skyjin, and Makabruddah catch this video to see their questions get answered.

Alright if you have any questions, as always leave a comment, which means something more now that we have these Q&A series going. Give us a like and click that subscribe button so that you’re the first to know when a new property tour or land blog video comes out!

Thank you so much for watching, and I’ll talk to you soon.🙂