L.A. Times: As Southland counties reassess home values, tax bills fall - "It's not a good situation"

A March 21 story by Garrett Therolf gives more details to what a recent Bloomberg article discussed. Property tax officials around Southern California are getting busy reassessing home values, particularly ones sold after about mid-2004. Reductions in assessments are coming, though with sales still occurring, we're still seeing property tax revenue growth, because Proposition 13 limits are reassessed when a home is sold. That means that there is a leap upward in assessed value if the seller of an existing home had been in his home for many years, thus contributing to property tax revenue growth. Los Angeles County officials anticipate a 5% rise in overall assessed property value because of sales of existing homes and because of new developments - even with the plunge in sale volume.

Los Angeles County has reassessed downward over 41,000 properties to date, with an average tax savings for the homeowner of $660. Riverside County has been getting hit with 100 phone calls a day from people wanting to know when their property values will be reassessed. Riverside home owners received a tax break of about $500 on average last year. Orange County Assessor Webster J. Guillory reports that staff will be working lots of overtime - 10-hour days and weekends - to do the reassessment work. There isn't enough staff to do it.

Los Angeles County supervisor says the impact of the housing downturn will be tremendous, and "the chickens are coming home to roost. How many chickens is the question." Ventura County supervisor Peter Foy says "We're not at the bottom yet...it's not a good situation. It'd be nice if people felt their investment in their home was still what it used to be."

The last slump we had in the early-mid 90's gave officials a chance to improve their property tax assessment procedures. Appeal hearings backed up in the system at that time, taking as long as two years for appeals to get heard. Los Angeles County assessor Rick Auerbach reports "we are trying to be proactive so that we never have that many appeals again, because we don't have any more people to handle appeals now than we did then."

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Oh, this downturn is shaping up to be quite a spectacle. As one blogger friend says, "Got popcorn?" Day by day the Southern California housing price premium is eroding.

On a personal note, I'm seeing my department at UCLA bracing for UC cutbacks. I am getting farmed out to other departments in the hospital in addition to doing the work I do in my own department, which is fine by me. I'd rather be overworked than underemployed, if you get my drift. I better milk it while my luck lasts.