Pull up two Erie listings side by side. Same price range, similar square footage, comparable finishes. One sits in a five-year-old subdivision with a clubhouse and a monument sign at the entrance. The other is a remodeled bungalow a few blocks from Briggs Street. Look at the property tax line on both and they might look nearly identical.
They won't stay that way. One of those numbers is finished. The other is a placeholder waiting for a much larger bill to catch up to it.
A Placeholder, Not a Lie
Erie has grown through what's called a metropolitan district, a financing tool that lets a developer bond against future property taxes to pay for the streets, water lines, and parks a new subdivision needs before anyone moves in. The Town of Erie is upfront about how this works on its own website: a metro district is a separate unit of government with its own mill levy, distinct from an HOA, which has no taxing power at all.
Here's the part that catches buyers off guard. A newly built home doesn't get its full assessed value from the county until roughly a year after construction wraps, and the town's own guidance says the district's mill levy often doesn't show up on a tax bill until one to two years after closing. The number sitting in the MLS listing when you tour the home isn't wrong. It's just describing a lot that hadn't been taxed at its real value yet.
What Stacking Mills Actually Costs
The Town of Erie's own mill levy is 14.137 mills. Everything a metro district adds sits on top of that, plus whatever the county, school district, and fire protection district already collect.
| Taxing entity | 2026 mill levy |
|---|---|
| Town of Erie (base rate) | 14.137 |
| Erie Highlands Metropolitan District No. 1 | 49.276 |
| Erie Highlands Metropolitan District No. 2 | 87.680 (24.000 general + 63.680 debt service) |
| Colliers Hill metro districts (authorized maximum) | up to 50 mills debt service, against $45 million to $60 million in bonded debt |
Run a hypothetical $500,000 home through the actual 2026 math. Colorado's assessment mechanics changed for this tax year: local governments now apply a 6.8 percent residential assessment rate after first subtracting 10 percent of a home's actual value, capped at $70,000, replacing the flat 6.25 percent rate that applied in 2025. For a $500,000 home, that reduction and rate produce an assessed value of about $30,600. The Town of Erie's own 14.137-mill levy turns that into roughly $433 a year owed to the town. Apply Erie Highlands Metropolitan District No. 2's 87.680-mill levy to that same assessed value and the district's share alone comes to about $2,683 a year, more than six times what the town itself collects. District No. 1's lower 49.276-mill levy still adds close to $1,508. Neither figure includes the county, school, or fire district mills layered on top of all three, and neither is optional once you own inside the boundary.
A 2024 Law That Now Follows the House
Colorado closed a real gap here. Under Senate Bill 23-110, effective January 1, 2024 and codified at C.R.S. § 38-35.7-111, every seller of residential property inside a metro district organized on or after January 1, 2000 has to hand the buyer the district's official website and a specific dollar estimate of the district's property tax, not a general disclaimer. That requirement used to apply only to new construction. Since the 2024 law took effect, it applies to resales too, so the second owner of a five-year-old Erie Highlands home owes the buyer the same numbers a builder would have owed on day one. Districts that have existed since August 7, 2013 also have a public disclosure document on file with the county clerk and recorder, which is worth pulling directly if you want to see the district's debt schedule in writing.
This is the single most useful lever a buyer has in this whole picture. The estimate is now a legal obligation on the seller's side, not a favor.
Why New Construction Starts Higher Anyway
Metro district mills aren't the only cost baked into a new Erie subdivision. Builders also pay one-time development fees to the town before they ever pour a foundation, and those fees show up in the base price of the home. A June 2025 development fee study from the Home Builders Association of Metro Denver put total fees on a single-family attached home in Erie at $75,634.35, among the highest figures in its north-metro comparison set.
| Municipality | Total development fees, SFA |
|---|---|
| Castle Rock | $85,773.63 |
| Erie | $75,634.35 |
| Parker | $69,591.66 |
| Brighton | $66,215.75 |
| Douglas County | $52,068.82 |
| Longmont | $49,331.08 |
Because new construction activity across Erie has slowed through 2025 and into 2026, some builders are offering closing cost credits, rate buydowns, or design center allowances to move finished inventory. Those incentives can soften the sticker price. They don't touch the development fee already built into the base price, and they don't touch the metro district mill levy waiting behind it.
The Other Half of Erie's Median
Erie's townwide median sale price ran about $773,000 over the three months ending May 2026. That single number blends two very different tax structures, not just two different housing products.
Old Town Erie's housing stock ranges from early 1900s construction to 1970s ranchers, mixed with newer infill closer to Briggs Street. Sales volume in this pocket of town is thin enough that any single month can swing hard in either direction, but the trailing twelve-month median has sat in the high $440,000s to around $459,500, well below the townwide figure. Part of that gap is size and age. Part of it is structural. Old Town's older parcels generally sit outside metro district boundaries entirely, which means their tax bill tracks the town's own 14.137 mills plus the standard county, school, and fire mills, with nothing additional layered on top. A buyer comparing a $650,000 Erie Highlands home to a $650,000 remodeled Old Town bungalow isn't just comparing square footage. They're comparing two different tax futures.
Five Questions Before You Compare Two Listings
- Pull the district's official website. Since January 1, 2024, the seller owes it to you by law if the home sits inside a district formed after January 1, 2000.
- Ask for the district's current certified mill levy and service plan, not last year's number. Erie Highlands' two districts currently sit 38 mills apart from each other, so "it's in a metro district" isn't specific enough.
- Confirm the home's most recent county assessment date. If the home was built in the last two years, the tax line you're looking at may predate the district's full mill levy.
- Request the specific dollar-amount estimate the seller is now required to provide under the 2024 disclosure law, not a verbal range.
- Ask your lender how escrow will adjust once the county reassesses. A tax jump that lands after closing can move your monthly payment more than a rate change would.
A Few Direct Questions
Is a metro district the same as an HOA? No. An HOA is a private entity funded by dues that maintains shared spaces. A metro district is a unit of government with the authority to bond and to levy property taxes, and Erie's own guidance draws that line clearly.
Can a district's mill levy go up after I buy? It can move within whatever cap its own service plan sets, and that cap varies district by district. Colliers Hill's metro districts are capped at a maximum 50 mills for debt service, adjustable if the state changes how assessed valuation is calculated. Erie Highlands shows how differently that plays out in practice: its two districts certified total 2026 levies of 49.276 mills and 87.680 mills respectively, under their own separate plans. The number to memorize isn't 50 mills. It's that you pull the specific district's plan before assuming anything.
Does every newer Erie neighborhood have one? Not automatically, but they're common in subdivisions platted in the last two decades. The only way to know for certain is to check the specific parcel against the county assessor's records or the district's own site, regardless of how new or old the listing looks.
None of this makes new construction a bad decision or Old Town the obvious answer. It means the two products carry different cost structures that a sticker price and a single tax line can't show you at the same time. If you're weighing an Erie Highlands or Colliers Hill home against something in Old Town, run both scenarios through their actual mill levy math before you compare monthly payments, not after.
If you want a second set of eyes on that math before you write an offer, Chad Murray can walk through the specific district, service plan, and assessment timeline for any Erie property you're considering. Schedule a consultation before you fall for a tax line that hasn't finished catching up yet.
