I have nine more tax appeals sitting finished on my desk right now. It’s just past midnight and I’m so glad to be wrapping up for the day. But before I call it quits I wanted to take a minute to share some stats with you from these appeals.

• Assessed value of 9 appeals: $2,855,247
• Market value of 9 appeals: $2,197,000 (23% lower overall)
• Largest overassessment percentage: 49% (a condo)
• Largest overassessment amount: $161,288
• Total potential savings for home owners this year: $8,228

This last bundle of appeals will be turned in today since November 30 is the deadline for disputing 2011 property taxes in many counties surrounding Sacramento (only for “decline in value” situations though – not all tax scenarios such as calamity reassessment). As the authorized agent for each home owner, I’ll be handling discussion with the Assessment Appeals Board in coming months and then the appeals hearing too if necessary. All things considered, the home owners are very happy and I even received some really encouraging feedback today that I wanted to share with everyone (the owner said it was okay to post). This made my day. Pretty cool, huh?

“Your report goes far beyond anything I could have imagined. As a former VP of Real Estate at a major East Coast bank, I’m very impressed. Add-in your quick turn-around time and initial e-mail response and I couldn’t be more pleased. Thank-you so much.”

What do you think about the stats?

If you have any questions or Sacramento area real estate appraisal or property tax appeal needs, contact me by phone 916-595-3735, email, Facebook, Twitter or subscribe to posts by email.

I wanted to give you some tips and important dates for appealing your property taxes if you are considering doing that in a county surrounding Sacramento.

1. Value Date for 2011:  Your property tax assessment for 2011 should be based on January 1, 2011.
2. The Assessor’s Word:  Check to see what the Assessor says your property is worth for 2011. It only makes sense to dispute your property taxes if there is a savings to be had (see links below). Every $10,000 of over-assessment equals about $125 out of your pocket.
3. Deadlines:  Know the deadlines for your local county. In most counties surrounding Sacramento you can appeal your property taxes between July 2 to November 30, but Placer County has a deadline at September 15, 2011.
4. Costs:  Many counties have a cost to file a formal appeal anywhere from $30-45, while some counties are still free. We often hear how there is no fee to contest property taxes, but that’s just not the case in many counties.
5. The Right Application:  Make sure you fill out the “Application for Changed Assessment” form. The Assessor has a “Prop 8 Decline in Value Form” you can try first for free, but this form is NOT an appeal. If you do not file the proper form before the appeals deadline, you have not officially appealed your property taxes (and you cannot fill out the form after November 30). I speak with many home owners every year who failed to file the right form.
6. Support Your Value:  Provide support for your opinion of value. Don’t lowball the Assessor or simply throw out a preferrable number for your property taxes. Show evidence for what your property was worth on January 1 of the given year. Do not use current comps, but rather sales from January 1 to March 31 if possible. If you need help doing this, please contact me since I run a property tax appeal company and I can give solid support for your property’s value at a very reasonable cost (usually around $100). I find most cases do not warrant a full appraisal, but rather a mini-report.

Check your assessed value for 2011 by clicking on the following links. You may need to enter your APN (assessor parcel number), and you should be able to quickly retrieve that on the Assessor’s website. If not, call me and I’ll get it for you.

• Sacramento County Assessor’s Website
• Placer County Assessor’s Website
• Yolo County Assessor’s Website
• El Dorado County Assessor’s Website
• San Joaquin County Assessor’s Website
• Solano County Assessor’s Website

I hope this was helpful to begin to lay a general framework for important property tax details. If you have any questions about the tax appeal process or would like my tax appeal company to look up your property for free, please click here.

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 or subscribe to posts by email.

I call this time of year “property tax season” because conversations with home owners start to really heat up now that April 15th has passed and most local Assessors will soon publish their 2011 property tax figures. Ever year around this time I get a great deal of calls about reducing property taxes in the Sacramento area. Let me share with you three of the tax situations I encountered last week:

Owner of vacant parcel: I just spoke with an owner of a vacant parcel in Sacramento, and his land is easily overassessed by $250,000. Vacant land is often assessed high for investors who purchased in recent years since land values have plummeted since the cost to build often currently exceeds resale value. 

Paying twice as much: In the past two days I spoke with a home owner who is paying more than twice as much in property taxes as he should be. His house is worth less than $200,000, but it is assessed at $400,000. Keep in mind that every $10,000 in assessment equals about $125, so this owner is essentially overpaying by $2,500 per year.

My own property taxes: The Assessor agreed to reduce the assessment on my own property by $27,000 for my 2010 property taxes. They ended up agreeing with my appeal last year, so on Friday I faxed back a “tax withdrawal” form to say I’ll accept the new value. This is not a huge savings, but I don’t mind getting a refund of $330 or so. I’ve been successful at appealing my own taxes for three consecutive years.

How do you know if you should appeal your property taxes? First of all, please do not pay anyone to appeal your property taxes until you know how much your property is assessed for 2011 and also if it really makes sense for your wallet. As an FYI, 2011 assessments will be announced anytime between May through July for most counties surrounding Sacramento. I made the video below last year and I think it may help provide a good context for understanding whether you should appeal or not. You may also wish to read some FAQs on my property tax appeal website. Note my fee is now $99 instead of $89 for a typical house – not vacant land or anything complex. There are so many companies ripping people off too, so I also included a second video, “Two reasons to be careful of those ‘lower your property taxes’ mailers“, to help illustrate what types of companies to avoid. I know a video like this sounds like I’m saying “work with me – not them”, but it’s really not self-serving at all. This is about helping locals understand the tax appeal process so property owners are equipped to make a well-informed decision.   

Email Sign-Up: I am glad to keep you in the loop about important property tax appeal deadlines and general information for counties in the Greater Sacramento Region. There is no obligation to do business with me and I’ll only email you once per quarter. Click here to get email reminders about important property tax information and deadlines (only 4 emails per year). Call or email me if you have any questions.

If you have any real estate appraisal, consulting, or property tax appeal needs in the Greater Sacramento Region, contact me at 916.595.3735, by email, on our appraiser website or via Facebook.

I got some great news recently that the Assessor’s Office in Sacramento County agreed to lower property taxes by roughly 1.5 million on some acreage that one of my clients owns. The detailed appeal I put together for his 2009 property taxes revealed a total value of $340,000, but the Assessor had this parcel assessed at $1,804,053 (just a little bit of a difference, right?). I’m so glad the Assessor agreed with my research. The tax savings for my client is almost $20,000 for the year. 

NOTE: In case you were wondering, there was previously a tear-down structure on the property valued at $53,060 by the Assessor. This structure was removed a couple years ago, so that’s why there is currently no value for it.  

If you have any questions or a need for an appraisal or property tax consulting in the Sacramento area, give me a call at 916.595.3735, send me an email, or catch me on Facebook.

“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?

I shared some good news a few weeks back that Sacramento County refunded me $398.96 after I appealed my 2008 property taxes. Well, yesterday another check arrived in the mail for $449.02 for my 2009 property taxes.  Here’s my story.

Taxes are a part of life and we should only pay our fair share – and no more!!! Please contact my tax appeal company so we can see if there is a potential savings for you. If there is, let’s move forward to help you reduce your property taxes (we have very reasonable fees). If not, then we’ll shoot straight with you to let you know if the Assessor has you valued correctly. Click HERE and we’ll look up your property for FREE.

So how should I spend the $847.98?

On Monday I wrote about my property tax refund of $398.96 from Sacramento County, and I ended up making a complimentary video. I am now using Sony Vegas HD Studio 10 and my friend Jenny is letting me take her green screen for a test drive before I purchase one myself. This was my first stab. There are some things I would do differently, but over the next few months I’ll be cranking out some more videos and honing my skills. Honestly, I REALLY enjoy making videos and it’ll be something you see more of from me.

What do you think?

I’m a fan of good news, so I wanted to share something with you. A property owner I helped last December just got word that the Sacramento County Assessor has agreed with my opinion of value for his property. They had previously assessed his Elk Grove home for 2009 property taxes at $945,000, but my company provided detailed support to show his assessed value should be at $750,000. The Assessor’s office agreed!!! This means the home owner will receive a refund check around $2,000 because he overpaid on property taxes in 2009.

This particular home owner contacted me literally a couple of days before the deadline to dispute property taxes last year. It’s a good thing he reached out too because otherwise that $2,000 refund check wouldn’t be showing up in the mail.

As a side note, when an appeal is filed and the Assessor ends up agreeing with the appeal, they’ll send you a “Tax Change Withdrawal of Application for Changed Assessment.” Basically this means they are asking you to formally agree to the new opinion of assessed value and simultaneously withdraw your appeal. Usually home owners I help have some questions during this phase because nobody wants to sign something that sounds so unfamiliar. But if the value looks good, you should sign off. There is no reason to keep the appeal in process or pursue an appeals hearing if the Assessor has already agreed to an accurate reduced value. 

I love stories like this and I’ve been hearing quite a few of them lately too. It never gets old to hear a home owner will get a refund check of $2,000. Keep me posted if it looks like you might need help or if you simply want me to check out if there is a potential savings for you. Call me at 916.595.3735 or see www.SacramentoTaxAppeals.com.

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….).