The assessed value for 18,800 properties have been reduced by San Francisco’s Assessor-Recorder office, down $2.4 billion in assessed value with the Mission Bay (1,236 reductions) and South Beach (874 reductions) neighborhoods leading the way.
If they haven’t already, property owners in San Francisco should soon receive Notices of Assessed Value (NAV) letters confirming their assessed property value, and any reductions, for tax purposes.
Homeowners who believe their assessed property value is greater than their property market value as of January 1, 2011 can file an appeal by September 15, 2011 with San Francisco’s independent Assessment Appeal Board.
“Independent”?
Before filing an appeal, property owners would do well to call the assessor’s office, find out which appraiser/assessor is assigned to your neighborhood, and talk or email with him/her about your concerns. If you’re reasonable, the assessor’s office may be willing to make a quick adjustment, saving you and them the hassle of a formal appeal. This worked for me–even though I own a share in a TIC building and am therefore formally ineligible for “informal review.”
Actually, this headline is quite misleading. According to the official press release (see hyperlink in my name):
“Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting announces today that despite continued declining roll values in counties across California, the City and County of San Francisco’s property roll value GREW by 1.3% to $163 billion which is an almost $2 billion increase over the previous fiscal year.”
It later goes on to say that residential values have increased (1-3% depending on type of residence). While it did say $2.4B of reductions were granted this was offsite by an even greater number of increases. I personally received a pretty sizeable increase, so I can confirm that they happened.
And while I Phil Ting’s motivation is largely posturing before the election, his take is that values are up and he’s collecting the city’s fair share of the increase via taxes. I plan on appealing by the way.
[Editor’s Note: It wasn’t intended to be misleading and plugged-in people should be well aware of the increase in the tax roll: San Francisco Property Tax Roll Up 1.3 Percent Year-Over-Year.]
Called the Assessor’s office the other day to appeal. They have my house pegged at 16% higher than I just bought it for in April. They told me that because it was a purchase this year, I can’t reasonably expect that they will reflect the value as near the recent sale price. Has anyone else experienced this?
So what happened to the appeal I made last year? And the year before that? Will appeal again but still waiting for my court date from my 2010 & 2009 appeals.
This may be a stupid question, but are there any negatives of successfully lowering your tax value? Does it affect resale / marketing or anything?
Thanks in advance
^ No.
Time for QE3,
Our assessment for this year is around 1/3 what we paid for late last year as it hasn’t taken the resale into account yet. They take their time to adjust values on new purchases.