San Diego County Property Tax Increase in 2014
Property tax increase will be less than 0.5% starting 2014. San Diego County Assessor Earnest Dronenburg stated that property taxes will increase by .0.45% throughout the county. The 0.45% increase is less than a quarter of the increase from the previous property tax evaluation of 2013. In San Diego County the tax rate is tired directly into the a 1978 voter passed proposition, inflation, and the consumer price index.
San Diego County property taxes are tied to the 1978 Proposition 13 which states that property tax increases are increased with inflation with a ceiling of 2%. With low inflation this means that the tax rate increase is marginal. Since the Proposition passed the 2% cap has been hit only seven times and property taxes fell once during a period of deflation in 2011.
While the drop in property tax increase rate from the previous year appears to be a great for the consumer, Dronenburg predicts that the property tax rate will increase in the upcoming years. According to Dronenburg:
“If the current market value as of Jan. 1, 2014, is higher than it was in 2013, the property value will be restored to its former Proposition 13 value or to the current market value, whichever is less.”
Property tax changes from 1980-2014 has been 2% except in:
1984 1%
1996 1.19%
1997 1.12%
2000 1.86%
2005 1.87%
2011 -0.24%
2012 0.75%
2014 0.45%
Dronenburg predicts that over 70% of the land in the county will be affected by the rate increase in 2014, with nearly 100,000 parcels of land affected. However cities, schools, special districts, and the county will pay less property taxes than they had previously planned. Dronenburg further stated, “The lower inflation factor may yield a $150 million increase in assessed value compared with about $600 million in 2013-14.”
Looking ahead at Rent RPM, we think that this is excellent news for real estate property investors. The market is ever shifting, ever so slightly into the buyers hands, which will bring new properties to the forefront for investment opportunity. Rent RPM is a real property management company operating out of North San Diego County.