West Coast - Wednesday, July 23, 2008 6:09 - 0 Comments

Assessed property values up 4.6 percent

Despite the real estate slump, assessed property values in San Diego County rose 4.6 percent this year or $18 billion to a new high of $409.3 billion, according to the county assessor’s office. That’s more than double the $195.4 billion in 2000 and more than triple the $123.7 billion total in 1990.

But assessor Greg Smith said local agencies should brace themselves for a much smaller increase next year in light of the continuing glut of foreclosures and the absence so far of any big-ticket commercial property sales.

“ ’08 will be the bottom of the current cycle and in ‘09 and ‘10 it’ll come back,” Smith said, projecting the increase in 2009 at between 2 percent and 3 percent.

He said coastal cities will likely do better because their home values have held steady and foreclosures have been relatively few. Del Mar had the highest increase among the 18 cities in the county, up nearly 10 percent to $2.3 billion, followed by Coronado, up 8.7 percent to $6.1 billion, and Carlsbad, up 7.6 percent to $24.9 billion.

But inland cities, where many of the foreclosure problems have been concentrated, are likely to bear the brunt of devaluations. San Marcos had the only overall decline in valuation, down 0.7 percent to $9.9 billion, followed by Escondido, up only 1.5 percent to $13.2 billion, and Poway, up 2 percent to $8.4 billion.

The city of San Diego rose 5.7 percent to $189.2 billion, Chula Vista, the second largest city, was up 2.2 percent to $25.4 billion, and the unincorporated areas were up 3.5 percent to $62.3 billion.

Roughly 1 percent of the assessed valuation is collected in property taxes for the 18 cities, the county government and numerous school districts and special districts. This year’s tax take for all jurisdictions was $4.4 billion.

The new valuation total, based on 2007 property assessments as of Jan. 1, means about $180 million more will be divided among all the agencies from taxes due in December and April, compared with the 2007-08 totals.

About 43.2 percent will go to schools, 10.5 percent to redevelopment agencies, and 3.6 percent to water, fire and other special districts, with the balance going to the cities and county governments.

Smith said the overall valuation increase would have been much less had there not been a spate of major commercial sales and construction completions. He mentioned the Irvine Co.’s purchase of more than $1 billion in office buildings, triggering a reassessment at the new purchase price, and the completion of the state Route 125 toll road, a $600 million assessment, the highest in county history. Commercial and industrial valuations rose 10.6 percent to $79.5 billion.

For next year’s tax roll, Smith anticipates just one major reassessment so far – SeaWorld, if the announced sale goes through of the park’s owner, Anheuser-Busch brewery, to Belgium-based InBev.

By contrast to commercial properties, single-family homes, condos and mobile homes rose only 2.1 percent to $265 billion and duplexes and apartment buildings were up 6.4 percent to $34.5 billion. The balance, representing agricultural, institutional and recreational properties, rose 16 percent to just under $12 billion.

The overall total valuation of all properties might have been higher had there not been nearly 80,000 valuation reductions, requested by property owners or approved by the county’s Assessment Appeals Board.

Of that total, 40,134 were submitted as so-called Proposition 8 “review of assessment” requests from owners who believe their properties’ values were lower than the county assessments. The assessor reviews the requests and often grants all or part of them and sometimes voluntarily reduces comparable properties in a building or subdivision.