I just got my 2011 proposed tax statement..

[draggar]

.. and I had to laugh.

Due to a very high rate of foreclosures in my neighborhood and a homestead exemption, my property value is $0.

Our property is worth less than the exemption.

So next year all we'll have to pay for taxes are a flat-rate set of taxes (fire, per property, utility, per property etc..)

I wonder if they're going to re-evaluate this?

[Sonoma]

Well, I guess that's the bright side of foreclosures. I had the opposite happen. When I bought my condo, they hadn't re-assessed the buildings since they were converted from apartments. My property tax doubled from the initial assessment. Oh well, it still beats renting. And my through-the-wall AC in the condo works 10x better than the window-mounted unit I had in the apartment.

[draggar]

Taxes are based on property value but due to skyrocketing values they enacted a law that they could only go up a certain % a year (I think 6%?). The previous owner bought the unit for $25K (it needed a lot of work and he refurbished it - and no exemption). When we bought it for $90K our first year taxes were very low but since we bought it, the first tax year they almost went up 400%.

Hopefully my mortgage payment will go down, too.

Edit: I just noticed the error in the subject - yeah, I can't type sometimes.

[taxguykarl]

I got a 10% reduction in assessed value on my abode. That ought to put a nice dent in the property tax.