FTHer Series - 10. Paying Taxes on Your New Home

No one likes to pays taxes but it’s something you need to know when purchasing a home. And many FTHer’s don’t remember to factor this expense into your homes budget. When you are ready to put an offer on a home your Realtor should look at the homes current taxes and the special assessments - fees for schools, community projects, etc… For a while you will be paying taxes on the homes current assessed value -it’s current taxes, until the county gets around to re-assessing your home. This happens once a year, typically around July for homes that have a change in ownership or the completion of new construction. Why does the county do this? Because
your homes value could have increased or decreased and they want the maximum amount of money from you. You will also more than likely receive a supplemental tax bill but we’ll discuss that in the next FTHer Series.

So how do you figure out your new tax bill? The price you paid for the property is typically a good estimate for your new reassessed value. Please know that we can’t be completely sure what your new assessed value will be. However for ease let’s says the new assessed value will be what you paid for your home. In order to figure out your new taxes take the purchase price and multiple that by the tax rate then add the special assessments to it and you have the yearly taxes for your home.

Example:  
        $300,000.00         <—- Purchase price
       X          1.05681% <—- Tax rate
      ____________________
           $3,170.43         <—- Total
       +    1,750.00         <—- Special assessments
      ____________________
           $4,920.43         <—- Yearly taxes

Remember this is only an estimate! You may be able to put the yearly taxes into an impound account which gets put with your mortgage bill, allowing you to pay taxes each month rather than in two larger payments. Check into an impound account with your lender and make sure to leave a cushion for that in your monthly payments.

This blog is specific towards residential real estate in Southern California and is intended for informational purposes only and should not be construed as real estate or financial advice. The information in the blog is opinion of Sara Kirk and not the opinion of Tarbell, Realtors. When posting a comment your personal information will not be shared or sold to anyone.