Something must be fishy if your model match neighbor is paying less in property taxes than you, right? Not necessarily. Is this a point you should bring up during a property tax appeal? It’s really not a strong point because your neighbor Joe could have purchased at a different time than you, and the difference in sales price will result in a difference in taxes paid each year. All things considered, if Joe purchased in 2002 at $247,000 and you bought an identical home in 2008 for $505,000, Joe is going to be paying about half as much in taxes than you do because of Proposition 13 in California. Assuming you purchased your home at a fair market value, your purchase price will most likely be the “Proposition 13″ value (also called the “base year value”). This means subsequent years of taxation will be based upon that value level – $505,000. If the market declines, then the assessor may issue a temporary decline in value under “Proposition 8″ (the real estate prop – not the marriage one), but that still does not take away the original $505,000 Proposition 13 base year value. If the market improves over time, your property taxes can still return to that level. That’s not going to happen for quite some time though in the Sacramento area.

Good or bad advice? I sometimes hear advice from real estate professionals for home owners to make a list of what neighbors pay in taxes, but this isn’t good advice to follow for reasons listed above. The Assessor even states on their website that “only open market sales that occurred before March 31, 2011, can be used to review your 2011-12 value” (not your neighbors taxes). While it may seem to be a secondary form of value support in certain cases, the best thing you can do is provide solid comparable sales between January 1 – March 31 of the given year. Or even provide sales between September to December of the previous year in addition to January to March. Hard facts such as sales from the market are worth way more than saying “but Joe next door pays less than me and I should pay less too”.

If you have any questions or you need help with the tax appeals process in Sacramento County or a surrounding area, let me know. I run a property tax appeal company and I’m always happy to help answer questions.

If you have any questions, or real estate appraisal or property tax appeal needs in the Greater Sacramento Region, contact Lundquist Appraisal by phone 916-595-3735, email, Facebook, Twitter or subscribe to posts by email.

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!!!

If you live in the Greater Sacramento Region and you’re wondering how to lower your property taxes, you’ve come to the right place. Here is my advice though. Before you make a decision to hire someone to help you reduce your property taxes (including my tax appeal company), wait until new assessments come out to determine if there is a real savings to be had. If you live in Sacramento or Placer County, for example, the Assessor has not yet posted their latest assessments yet, so it doesn’t make much sense to dispute your taxes until you know what their assessment is going to be for 2010.

Why am I telling you this? Because I am committed to being honest with you about the property tax appeals process and how you can save money. If it looks like the Assessor has your value wrong, I am glad to partner with you to help the Assessor understand true market value. My company’s fees are very reasonable too. On the other hand, if it looks like the Assessor has your property assessed accurately, you don’t need to do a thing.

If you want me to send you an email reminder when new assessments come out, click “contact” in the upper right hand corner of my tax appeal website, and I’ll get in touch with you soon. For now, if you have any questions about appealing your property taxes, or if there is anything I can do for you, let me know. Thank you.

By the way, the Sacramento County Assessor’s Office typically publishes their new assessments in the month of May, but right now they are expecting to get this information out at the very beginning of July. You can expect Placer County to get their information out in July also.

Sacramento Region Property Tax Appeals
TEL: 916.595.3735
FAX: 916.361.1964
www.SacramentoTaxAppeals.com
info@SacramentoTaxAppeals.com

NOTE: This advice is good for a traditional “decline in value” tax appeal only (it’s not applicable to a base year appeal or calamity reassessment….).

As you may know, I run a property tax appeal website for property owners in the Greater Sacramento Region. I help home owners dispute their property taxes when it makes good economic sense for them to do so (only if there is a savings to be had). I mention this because I am very pleased to have learned last week that the Sacramento County Assessor reduced my own property taxes by $36,622 after viewing the evidence I presented for a lowered opinion of value. They agreed with my value and the tax refund will be roughly $350. 

This is not a huge sum of money. There are certainly clients that will save $10,000+ because of the work my company provides. Yet at the same time, every dollar counts and I’d much rather save $350 than relinquish my hard-earned greenbacks to the local Assessor.

The wild thing is that these were property taxes for 2008. I turned in the Application for Changed Assessment in November 2009 and the Assessor just got back to me about these taxes last week - sixteen months later.

If you think you are a good candidate for lowering your property taxes, then it’s important to take action before the deadline for appealing property taxes comes (that’s either September 15 or November 30 depending on which county you live in). Had I not actually formally disputed my own taxes in November 2009, I would have been out of luck, and the Assessor would not be cutting me a check. I don’t know about you, but I’m a big fan of getting checks in the mail.

I’m happy to answer any questions. Give me a call at 916-595-3735 or shoot me an email at ryan@SacramentoTaxAppeals.com.