However, in regards to their valuation it is a relatively small segment. A lot of the increases in valuation are seen in residential construction, which has not really been kicking in during the last few years. Since we have had the downturn, besides apartments being built in a fair amount Riverside construction did not see a large amount of single-family homes built.
Even if you have a large increase in value on the commercial side, it would not affect the assessment rule as much as you would see on the residential side. They have had some apartments and warehouses built, and there is talk of a huge project occurring in Moreno Valley in the next few years.
In the corridor there is a lot of industrial space being built and occupied now. This has certainly helped the overall assessed valuation. Residential is not quite keeping up, although we have seen some big increases cumulatively over the last 5 years. Bruce asked if a tax assessor office had its preference, what would be the next project.
Bruce wondered if it would be commercial or residential construction just because of the tax revenue. Bruce wondered just based on tax revenue being the driving force if they would be better off building a commercial project or a residential. Peter started by saying as an assessor they do not concern themselves with revenue.
If the values go up they reflect that, and if the values go down they reflect that as well. They act just as quickly on either side and really try hard to make sure their appraisal staff does not think about generating revenue since all they do is appraise property. With that being said, the benefit to the county is when there is appreciation of real estate.
We all know the benefits of the appreciating real estate market and things equity can do for you. It is a bit easier for them to do residential properties, so when they see new homes coming up and a tract of homes, they can see some similarities of properties. They are very good mass appraisal on residential properties, but commercial properties are an individual one-off valuation. This takes a lot of time and resources. They do not really have a preference over the other, but the commercial industrial appraisal side of things is a little more difficult than the residential side.
The real bump in existing real estate as far as assessments go is when the home is swapped. Bruce asked what percentage of the inventory is generally transferred. Peter said he sees thousands of documents recorded per year, although they are not all changes in ownership or assessable changes of ownership.
The recorder side of the office takes that information on land records that are recorded and sends them over to the title department. They then determine whether or not there is a re-assessable change of ownership. Of those they have about , per year over the last few years. Not all of them turn out to be large increases in value because they have had so many properties they review every year since the recession began.
Because of this, they were on market value on a lot of properties already. It is not a situation where somebody bought something in and turned it over to where it is now a big increase in value. More often what they are seeing is something that somebody bought in and sold again in They have pretty much been keeping up on the market value, and this is why they did not see dramatic changes in value in the last year or two even though they could see that appreciation in value.
Because of , we have had hundreds of thousands of properties referred to as Prop 8 status. This means they declined them for market conditions and have been reviewing them every year, gradually bringing them back up to market value.
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If something sells right now, there is a good chance it is close to its market value. Bruce asked if there is any connection between doing a short sale or a loan mod and Prop 8 status homes. Peter said with a loan modification they are not going to reassess the property. This is the same owner but a change in title, and no change in ownership as far as accessibility goes.
With a short sale, it does change hands from one owner to another. They would re-appraise the property at its current market value, which may or may not be the amount of the short sale. They will look at prevailing market conditions and comparable sales; and they are going to say particularly when that short sale is not the norm that they are not sold on it being the market value. They would have to find comparable sales that report that particular sale price as the current market value. If it does not, then by law they have to enroll current market value.
Bruce asked when Prop 8 was instigated, which Peter said it was within a year or two of Prop You could essentially adjust the property value temporarily, and there has been a market value change attributable to either the market or disaster. You could reduce the property temporarily until it increases back up to its Prop 13 value. When they really saw Prop 8 take a hold on properties was in the early s when they were doing , properties a year, which they thought was a lot to review. In this last downturn, they had over , properties in Prop 8. This was out of close to 1 million assessments they had.
FAQs - Assessor - Recorder - County Clerk - County of Marin
This is a significant number of properties that were in the property status. In residential properties they had a little over , at the trough, and right now they are at , residential properties that are Prop 8. They have made significant progress in getting back to a normal market. It seems this would add an enormous amount of man hours to the department. This was the thought years ago that they would not be able to get the work done; but one of the great things his predecessor, Larry Ward, did was make sure they leveraged technology. Peter was the assistant assessor at the time, and they found some ways to do a mass appraisal and use the technology in much better ways.
Episode Notes
Even though the number of appraisals they had to do increased significantly, they actually were able to downsize and continue to get the tax role completed and on time. This was a really big accomplishment. Yet they continue to get all the work done that is mandated by the state, but with significantly fewer people.
They did not really lay anybody off but rather carefully planned things out. The leveraging technology was the most important thing, especially industry-wide in real estate. Bruce said this has been a big benefit in the speed of accessing information of all kinds. Bruce went on to talk about Prop 13, which has been around since the late 70s.
Riverside County Recorder Mechanics Lien Filing
Bruce asked what the rules are here as far as how fast the value of your home can progress. If you accomplished a purchase in , Bruce asked what percentage the value can go up tax-wise. Prop 13 essentially says that once you are given base-year value, meaning your property valued as far as the change of ownership or new construction. This becomes a base-year value, or your Prop 13 value. The property value can only increase by an inflationary factor tied to the California CPI. This could be the Prop 13 value, which is the original value, and increase your inflation.
Or, it could be at the current market value as of January 1 each year. In the past back in the 90s, Peter remembered being very reactionary and asked people to file something, whether it was for a deed of property or something else. The great thing they did in was create ways to mass appraise properties without being asked. They started to review large projects in large neighborhoods and determined what the value would be, whether Prop 13 or current market value.
They will then be given what you are entitled. This is what kept them ahead of the curve so they were not bogged down in a lot of assessment appeals. These take many more man hours than an appraisal. Bruce was actually a benefactor of that policy.