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Have you seen your new property assessment yet? Values are going up by about 22% in Polk County and surrounding counties."I received my tax assessment, and it was quite a bit higher than it was before," Des Moines homeowner Marta Hawkins said.Hawkins got a surprise in the mail this week. And so did every homeowner in Polk County. Property tax assessments are on the rise."So right now, we are seeing around 22%. That's more than double than anything we've ever done in the past, so a very unusual year," Polk County Assessor Randy Ripperger said.Ripperger says it's the largest increase he's ever seen, and he's been on the job for more than four decades. However, he says it's not unexpected. He blames the white-hot housing market that started during the pandemic."You think back to 2020. We had record-low interest rates, we had a severe shortage of homes for sale on the supply side and an extremely strong demand and supply and demand is driving this market," Ripperger said.However, just because home values are skyrocketing, that does not mean your property tax bill will go up by the same amount."People think that means your taxes are going up 20%. That’s not going to be the case. We have a thing called the residential rollback in Iowa. That's going to limit the growth of taxable value statewide to 3%," Ripperger said.That's good news for homeowners like Hawkins."The price of houses has gone up, so we are going to expect our tax assessment to go up, but it doesn't make it any easier," Hawkins said with a laugh.If you don't agree with your new property assessment, you can protest it by going online or making a phone call to your assessor’s office. ����vlog reached out to other central Iowa counties to find out their average property tax assessment increases. They are as follows: Story County: Between 25% and 30% increaseMarshall County: Between 23% and 30% increaseMarion County: Around 18% increaseWarren County: Around 25% increaseMadison County: Around 24% increaseDallas County: Around 14% increaseBoone County: Around 31% increaseJasper County: Around 21% increase