You might recall from this Spring the collective “gasp!” heard up and down the Front Range as Boulder County homeowners opened the envelope containing their official property value assessments and resulting property tax increase. Anticipating the historic volume of appeals that would follow, one enterprising, early-career Realtor saw an opportunity. 

Katie Kuosman hadn’t been a Realtor for a year when she came up with the idea to design a Property Assessment Appeal Analysis that could help her community and clientele address the blow. Its goal was two-fold: Decrease the stress of the appeal process and ultimately, hopefully, reduce the financial load of property tax increases many thought were beyond the pale.

“People were shocked to see how much their taxes increased,” Katie said. 

To create the report, which was customized to each property, she leveraged an approach blending macro-information (county and city data, in this case) with micro-information (immediate neighborhood and home-specific details from public records). With the analysis firmly grounded in data, it was equally critical she present the results in such a way that someone who doesn't work as an appraiser or real estate agent could understand them.

“I wanted to provide some higher-level context around the factors that resulted in such a significant increase to their property taxes,” Katie said. “Additionally, an analysis specific to their neighborhood and their property was aimed to give them the best chance possible to have success with an appeal of their property assessment value with the Boulder County Assessor's Office.”

She offered it to families in the Rock Creek (Superior) area and several took her up on it. The jury’s still out on those appeals at the time of this writing. But a different kind of success was felt in the affirming responses Katie received immediately following her efforts.

This data-driven approach to marketing a real estate business showcases an ability to access important data quickly, see the story it tells, and disseminate that information. Katie takes it a few steps further by considering adjacent homeownership pain points, developing actionable next steps toward a solution, and being there to assist her prospects in taking them. 

In a highly competitive industry like real estate, new and seasoned agents alike work hard and act fast, vying for a foothold in a tumultuous market of home buyers and sellers. But there’s always something new arising, and the latest class of agents not only brings a fresh perspective but does so with native digital skills, heightened increasingly by automation and AI. 

Collecting, summarizing, and analyzing large sets of data is a young agent's way of life, allowing them to break through via innovative services homeowners and buyers haven’t seen before. Where initiatives like Katie’s property assessment appeal analysis are altogether unique, long-standing offers like market reports can be made shiny and new with detailed customization features. All of it can be designed, automated, and scaled with ease, given the right tools and know-how. 

In Katie’s case, aside from her recent assessment appeal analysis, she sends a Customized Market Update (CMU) offer to friends, family, clients, and potential clients. She also uses an app called Focus 1st to create pricing charts she can walk clients through to help them create a strategy for submitting offers.

Building trust and becoming a go-to authority around pain points associated with home buying, selling, or owning is a surefire way for an agent to attract and keep clients by their side. With the data available, the tools to access it, and the technology to automate valuable, customized output, an agent with a bright idea can grow their business—regardless of their tenure in the field.