The same Colorado Springs house can carry four different official values at the same moment, and they can sit more than $60,000 apart.
I'm Brandon Behr, a REALTOR® with the Behr & Behr Team in Colorado Springs, and the honest answer is short. Your home is worth what a qualified buyer will pay for it this month. Every published number, mine included, is an estimate of that, and each is built for a different purpose.
Here are the four, as of early August 2026. The median closed sale price in the elevateMLS market was $460,000 in July 2026, per Pikes Peak REALTOR Services Corp. The median asking price in the Colorado Springs metro in June was $497,000, per Realtor.com's listings series republished by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, updated July 3, 2026. Zillow's accuracy page, refreshed July 14, 2026, puts its nationwide median error at 7.21% for off-market homes, roughly $33,000 on a $460,000 house. And the Assessor's actual value on that house reflects the market of June 30, 2024.
Four numbers. One house. All defensible. None interchangeable.
Of those four, only the appraiser and the broker go inside the house, and only the appraisal is ordered and paid for through the lender. Under C.R.S. 12-10-602, a broker's opinion of value is excluded from the definition of an appraisal so long as it is not represented as one and is not used to obtain financing. I am not an appraiser. What I produce is a comparative market analysis, and if a lender, an attorney or a court needs a value, they need an appraiser.
What Zillow and Redfin publish about their own accuracy
Both split their error rates into on-market and off-market homes. That split is the most misread thing in home valuation.
- Zillow, on its Zestimate accuracy page last refreshed July 14, 2026: a nationwide median error of 1.77% for homes on the market and 7.21% for off-market homes, across more than 110 million homes.
- Redfin, on its Redfin Estimate page as I read it on August 5, 2026: 1.85% for homes currently for sale and 7.27% off market, across roughly 92 million homes.
- Colorado Springs, from Zillow's metro accuracy table on that same page: a median error of 1.18% across 7.6 thousand homes, with 92.87% landing within 5% of the sale price.
That 1.18% is genuinely good, and I will not pretend otherwise. But read the column header. Zillow's metro table reports on-market homes, already listed, with a list price and photographs feeding the model. Your house, sitting off market, gets the other number: on a $460,000 house, a 7.2% median error is a band roughly $66,000 wide, and half of all homes fall outside it. That is my arithmetic on Zillow's published rate. Direction over time is where these tools earn their keep, as in tracking Colorado Springs trends with the Zillow home value estimator. Pricing one listing is where they stop.
Where the model has almost nothing to work with here
An automated valuation model works from public records, listing service data and county assessor records, without visiting. It is good at square footage, bedroom count, lot size, year built and recent nearby sales. Several things that move a price here are invisible to all of that.
- Metro district levies. Per the El Paso County Treasurer's certified mill levy table for tax year 2025, metro district levies here range from 0.000 to 77.056 mills. Upper Cottonwood Creek Metropolitan District No. 5, serving Wolf Ranch, sits at the top; Old Ranch levies zero. On a $460,000 home at the 6.25% local government assessment rate, that spread is about $2,215 a year. That is my arithmetic on the county's published levies and the state's published rate. More in what your Colorado Springs property tax bill really says.
- Roof age and hail history. The Colorado Division of Insurance reported on February 11, 2026, from twenty carriers covering about 80% of the market, that hail accounts for 26% to 54% of homeowners premium by county. A buyer here asks the roof's age before the kitchen. See why hail drives homeowners insurance in Colorado Springs.
- Foundation and soils. Colorado Geological Survey Map Series 32, published in 1999, maps a differential heave belt through western Colorado Springs, crossing Gold Camp Road, Garden of the Gods Road, Uintah Street and Centennial Boulevard. A repaired foundation or a pending engineering letter changes what a buyer pays. None of it is in a record the model reads.
How El Paso County arrives at your "actual value"
Colorado runs a two-year reappraisal cycle. As the El Paso County Assessor's appeals page puts it, "Odd-numbered years are re-appraisal years in the State of Colorado." Even years are intervening years.
The Assessor's page states that "the data-gathering period used to estimate the value of property for 2025 & 2026 shall be the 18-month period running from January 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024," The page cites Colorado Statute 39-1-104(12.3)(a). Flagging that honestly: in the published text of C.R.S. 39-1-104 I could find, the reassessment cycle language sits at subsection (10.2), while (12.3)(a) reads as personal property. The window itself is not in dispute; the subsection number looks like a typo.
C.R.S. 39-1-103(5)(a) states that "the actual value of residential real property shall be determined solely by consideration of the market approach to appraisal." No cost approach, no income approach. Comparable sales inside the statutory window, and that is all.
So the number on your notice describes June 30, 2024, and will keep describing it until the 2027 reappraisal. When a seller tells me the county says the house is worth $430,000, neither of us is wrong: the county answered a question about June 2024, and the buyer is answering one about this month. In a rising stretch that makes sellers underprice, and in a softening one it makes them overprice.
What the El Paso County market is actually doing, July 2026
Pikes Peak REALTOR Services Corp published a snapshot for July 2026 showing 1,359 closed sales, a median sale price of $460,000 and 52 average days on market, across all property types in the elevateMLS market. Realtor.com's series for the Colorado Springs metro, republished by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and updated July 3, 2026, add June 2026 texture: a median listing price of $497,000, a median 50 days on market, 4,021 active listings and 2,058 listings with a price reduction. That pair is 51.2% of active listings carrying a price cut, my arithmetic on their two published counts.
Two caveats. I could not find a published El Paso County months-of-supply figure or a local list-to-sale ratio for July 2026. Dividing 4,021 June active listings by 1,359 July closings gives roughly three months of supply, but that mixes two months, two providers and two geographies. For a published comparison, the Colorado Association of REALTORS Real Estate Snapshot for June 2026 puts the statewide figures at a $565,000 median sale price, 56 average days on market, 4.6 months of supply and 98.7% of list price received.
Sellers are asking around $497,000 and closing around $460,000, and half the inventory has cut price. From the buyer's side, I looked at timing in is it a good time to buy a house in Colorado Springs.
Get the real number for your address
All free, public, and usable without an agent.
- El Paso County Assessor property search at property.spatialest.com/co/elpaso. It shows the actual value assigned and the characteristics on file, and it is where an appeal gets filed. Check the recorded square footage, bed and bath counts and finished basement area, because bad county data feeds bad automated estimates.
- El Paso County Treasurer at treasurer.elpasoco.com for the actual tax bill, and the Assessor's tax entity maps at assessor.elpasoco.com/tax-entity-maps for the districts your parcel sits in.
- Pikes Peak Regional Building Department permit and inspection search, free by address. It shows whether the finished basement was permitted and when the roof was replaced.
- A comparative market analysis from any local broker, free and without obligation. Ask which comparable sales were used, what adjustments were made, and what the house is likely to appraise at.
Before you list, in the order I do it
Pull the county record first and correct anything wrong on it. Get the roof's age and hail claim history in writing, because a buyer's insurance quote surfaces it anyway. On septic, schedule the transfer-of-title inspection early rather than at contract. In a metro district, know your mill levy before a buyer's lender computes the payment. Then walk the competing inventory in person, because half of it has cut price. A number is a conclusion, not a starting point.
I'm Brandon Behr with the Behr & Behr Team here in Colorado Springs. If you want the honest number for your address rather than the flattering one, I will pull the comparable sales, the county record and the levies and walk you through what each is measuring. No obligation, no pressure to list.
This post is general information, not appraisal, legal, tax or insurance advice. I am a licensed REALTOR®, not a licensed appraiser, and nothing here is an appraisal. Market figures, mill levies, assessment rates and appeal deadlines change; verify current figures with the El Paso County Assessor, the El Paso County Treasurer and Pikes Peak REALTOR Services Corp. The Behr & Behr Team serves El Paso County, including Colorado Springs, Fountain, Security-Widefield, Falcon, Peyton, Black Forest, Monument and Manitou Springs. Equal Housing Opportunity.
