“Hi ho Silver”, let’s take a closer look at an Elk Grove property tax situation. This is a real life example I just completed for a home owner in Sacramento County (Elk Grove). Acting in the role of a property tax consultant, I pieced together the best available comparable sales and put together some very solid trend graphs to help illustrate what the specific neighborhood real estate market was doing. 

The Assessor had valued the home owner’s property at $314,000 as shown with the blue dot in the graph below. When looking at the graph, you can see very clearly that this is a “lone ranger” assessment. There is nothing in the neighborhood that has sold even close to $314,000 for quite some time. It’s very clear that the market was not supporting values above $250,000 for much of 2009 and particular on January 1, 2010, the date of assessment. By the way, this is a typical tract subdivision, so there is nothing about the subject property that would warrant an assessment way above all other sales.

You might think $64,000 in property taxes is not that big of a deal, but this equals about $800 in property taxes. Breaking things down further, that is overpaying taxes by $67 per month. If you have questions about property taxes or would like my property tax consulting company to investigate your property, call 916.595.3735 or visit www.SacramentoTaxAppeals.com. Remember, the deadline to appeal your property taxes in Sacramento County (and many surrounding counties) is November 30, 2010.

What do you think of the “lone ranger” assessment?

This is a quick reminder that new property tax assessments will be coming out for Sacramento County on July 6, 2010. The Sacramento County Assessor will post them on their website here. Make sure to check out your property to ensure the Assessor has your house valued correctly. These new assessment figures should be based on the value of your property on January 1, 2010. Please let me know if you have any questions and see my property tax appeal website if you think you might be a candidate to dispute your property taxes or if you’d like us to investigate your property further (for free).

By the way, I just got word last week that the Assessor agreed to reduce property taxes by 28% for a local home owner I helped last year. That’s what I like to hear!!!

Today I took the last batch of property tax appeals for the year to the Sacramento County Assessment Appeals Board at 700 H Street in Sacramento (as pictured below). Before I headed out of the office though I thought it would be interesting to calculate the difference between the Assessor’s property tax assessment and my calculation of fair market value. Guess what, when considering only these eight tax appeals, the Assessor’s Office had these properties valued higher by $2,860,000, which essentially means local property owners were scheduled to pay $30,000 more in property taxes than they should this year. Ouch.  

Today was the last day to appeal property taxes for 2009 in Sacramento County (and in most if not all counties in California). If you did not dispute your taxes this year, you will have the opportunity to do so next year. You can expect new assessments for 2010 to come out at some point between May to July 2010 depending on which county you are located in. The assessment appeals period will then go from July 2010 to either September 15, 2010 or November 30, 2010 (depending on which county you are located in). Remember, your property assessment for next year will be based on your property’s value on January 1, 2o10.

If you have any questions or a story to share, comment below.

www.SacramentoAppraisalBlog.com Assessor Value vs. Market Value: A Difference of 2.86 Million Dollars