We had Larry Stone as our guest speaker at the Realtors' tour meeting this morning. It was very interesting to learn what the impact of this market has been in his office this year, and also to hear about the history of tax assessments in the county.
Proposition 8, passed soon after Prop. 13, requires county assessors throughout the state to bring the taxable value down, if properties should lose value. Over 26,000 properties will be reassessed this year in Santa Clara County (97% are residential). To put that figure into perspective, Contra Costa County will revalue 176,000 homes this year.
In the real estate "down years" of 1990-1995, 20-25% of area residential properties had their tax base reduced temporarily, then in 1996 the values started to move up, until the dot-com bust of 2002.
Our county has the fewest assessment appeals in the state. The highest year was 1996, and even then there were only 7300.
My clients ask when a property is reassessed. If it's new construction, it will be...and the "leave up one wall and avoid reassessment" theory is a myth. Remodels are generally not reassessed unless there is an addition to the square footage of the house, or if it is so substantially improved that it is equivalent to a new home. A transfer deed obviously signals a reassessment of value, but there are exceptions to this. If the deed is from parent to child or vice-versa, from grandparents to grandchildren (if the children are deceased) and under Prop. 60 or 90 for seniors. For more information, check out the Santa Clara County Assessor's website.
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