Lower your property taxes??

December 1, 2008 · Leave a Comment

With declining real estate market values in many areas, it may be time to review your property tax basis. So far, in 2008, there have been 810 property owners who have had their taxes lowered by the City Assessor-Recorder’s office. If you believe the property values in your neighborhood have declined since you purchased your home, you might want to appeal the tax assessor’s valuation of your property with the County Tax Assessor.

This map shows the actual areas with the percentages where these tax reductions for the 810 property owners in San Francisco took place. Notice that the majority of the assessment adjustments were in Area 9 (South of Market and the Inner Mission District). These adjustments would be mostly attributed to the devaluations on the lofts and newer construction condos more than single family homes. In Area 10 (Bay View, Silver Terrace, Outer Mission, Excelsior, Portola) the values have dropped as a higher percentage of homeowners purchased homes with subprime loans and the resulting foreclosures have had a negative impact on the market.

The Appeals Process

There is a formal and informal property tax appeal process in California. The informal process involves filing with the County Assessor while the formal process involving filing an appeal with the Assessment Appeals Board where you can choose to have a Hearing for an independent review of your property’s assessed value. An appeal will need to include recent comparable sales in your area and other pertinent data.

For details of the appeals process, please see SFGate.com and CaliforniaPropTaxAppeal.com.

Please note: There are many web sites that will assist you with this process for about a $30 fee. However, be careful. Computer generated comparables from Zillow.com and other sales data bases do not always accurately reflect positive and negative individual property value adjustments and the resulting property valuations can vary greatly. Median property values on single family homes have declined approximately 6% overall in San Francisco from October 2006 to October 2008. However, the individual districts and neighborhoods adjustments require personalized market expertise to accurately assess the comparables.

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