Signs of the Apocalypse in Santa Cruz
April 07, 2008
For many years, I’ve had the idea that one day I would write a book. My dad is a professional author - check out his latest book about psychic Annette Martin, Gift of the White Light. I plan to write a book that’s a cross between Catcher in the Rye and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The project is some ways away from getting off the ground (decades, maybe) but I already have the first sentence picked out. It’s catchy. Ready? Here goes.
It was looking grim.
Did it grab you? I know, you’re hooked. Speaking of looking grim, here are some signs of the apocalypse.
[From Record numbers won’t pay property tax bill - Santa Cruz Sentinel]
A near record number of homeowners likely won’t pay property taxes by the April 10 deadline, another sign of just how tight things have become.
Yep yep. The chickens are making themselves right at home, roosting all over the darn place. It’s no sweat not to pay your property tax. Santa Cruz county won’t auction off your home for like five years, so what’s the rush? The interest rate is only 10%, and what are you paying to CapitalOne? Only thing is, I hear that you if you want to work out a deed in lieu of foreclosure with your lender, they won’t work with you if you have unpaid property tax. So there you go, keep them property taxes paid, people!
So that’s one sign. There are others. It seems that one of the greatest occupations ever is under attack here in the Golden State. Yes, of course, I’m talking about real estate agents. There has been a precipitous drop of new blood coming into a industry that is clearly hemorrhaging:
[From Number of real estate agents starts to shrink]
Just 1,324 people took the real estate salesperson exam in January, down from 8,765 a year earlier and 14,397 two years ago, according to the Department of Real Estate.
There are other signs, too. But now I see we are fast approaching 9 AM here on the Left Coast and really I need to get cracking. It’s Monday morning, and despite the fact that the writing is clearly on the wall and the apocalypse is nigh, life goes on.
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 8:42am
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Property Tax Rates for Santa Cruz Real Estate
January 13, 2008
Many times people will ask me, “What’s the property tax going to be on that house?” or something along those lines. In California, thanks to Proposition 13, the property tax rate always starts out at 1% of the assessed value. When a property is purchased, it is automatically re-assessed to the purchase price. So, for example, if you purchase a $500,000 property, the assessed value will be $500,000 and the property tax will be 1% of that, or $5,000 per year.Were it only that simple! The base property tax rate is only 1%, however local governments can add on to that a bit. I usually use a figure of about 1.1%. But can you know the property tax rate exactly? In Santa Cruz County, the answer is, happily, yes. First, you will need to know the Assessor’s Parcel Number for the property you are buying. Thankfully, there is now an easy way for anyone to find out the Assessor’s Parcel Number for any property in the county. Simply point your web browser to:http://sccounty01.co.santa-cruz.ca.us/ASR/Type in the Property Address, and hit the Search button. You don’t need to enter city, state, or zip - you just need to enter the address and street, e.g. “123 Main”. If a match is found, you will see at least one parcel listed. Sometimes you may see more than one, because there may be a 123 Main Street and a 123 Main Court, for example. The parcel number is always in this format - 123-456-78. Sometimes you may see the third set of numbers with a leading “0″ - for example, the MLS always lists Santa Cruz parcels with this leading 0 in the third set of numbers. You must strip this leading 0 off.Once you know the parcel number, head over to the Tax Collector’s Secured Property Tax Bill page:http://ttc.co.santa-cruz.ca.us/taxbills/and enter in the parcel number you have, and hit the Submit button. You should now be shown a page that shows how much property tax is due on this parcel. However, it does not show the rate. There is a link, though, that will break down the rate for you. I have circled the link in red on the picture below:
When you click on the “See Details” link, a window pops up that looks something like this:
That image is just a thumbnail - you can click on it to make it bigger so you can read the fine print. When you do, you can see that the “General Tax Rate” is that 1% I was talking about, and then there is a long list of additional taxes, mostly school bonds. You can see that the entire tax rate for this parcel is 1.097005% - plus a few other charges.Using this web site, it is very easy to know how much property tax you will be charged each year for a property that you purchase here in Santa Cruz county. Of course, your property tax will rise by 1% per year, and there may be other assessments to come down the pike which increase your property tax even further.
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 3:43pm
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