Fun Facts: 40th anniversary of the passage of Proposition 13

Since 2018 marks the 40th anniversary of the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, and the deadline for property tax payments is coming up, I thought some FUN FACTS from the Santa Clara and San Mateo County Tax Assessors Offices would be appropriate as we close out 2018:

Santa Clara County:

*The 2018-19 Assessor’s Annual report details Santa Clara County’s longest post-recession recovery, well into its eight year since 2009; the annual assessment roll increased by $33 billion to $483.2 billion, a 7.34 percent increase over the prior year.

*Just over half the $33 billion increase in assessed value was attributable to re-assessable changes in ownership

*An additional $6.6 billion came from new construction and business property

*All other properties saw a 2 percent increase in the assessed value mandated by Prop 13

*Apple and Google accounted for nearly 10 percent of the County’s increase in values

*Office vacancy declined from 25 percent in 2009 to 11 percent at the end of 2017

*Apartment rents in the metropolitan San Jose area increased a whopping 52 percent since 2010, a level that is unsustainable

*Last year 68 percent of homes in Santa Clara County sold for more than the asking price

*Last year 22 percent of residential transactions were all cash

*There are 15 cities in Santa Clara County, all experienced strong year-over-year assessment roll growth

*Mountain View and Milpitas had the lowest rate of growth at 4.9 percent and 5.03 percent respectively

*Sunnyvale and Santa Clara led the County with 11.2 percent and 9.6 percent growth respectively

*Assisted 38,868 taxpayers who contacted the office by phone

*Assisted 19,748 taxpayers who visited the public service counter

San Mateo County:

*The county’s Property Assessment Roll increased year-over-year by $16.5 billion, or 8.03 percent to a record high of over $222.5 billion in assessed value

*Since 2010, the combined assessment roll has increased nearly 60 percent

*San Mateo county has the lowest unemployment rate in the state for the fourth consecutive year at 1.9 percent

*The county’s unincorporated areas, which include San Francisco International Airport, experienced a growth rate of 6.06 percent

*Top 5 cities in percentage growth are:  East Palo Alto (11.40), Daly City (11.33), South San Francisco (11.13), Menlo Park (11.06) and Brisbane (10.78)

*Top 5 cities for new commercial development (projects 80,000SF or more):  Redwood City (12.9 million SF), Menlo Park (9.7 million SF), South San Francisco (8.8 million SF), Brisbane (8 million SF), and San Mateo (5 million SF)

*Facebook was the largest driver of increased assessment in Menlo Park, accounting for over $700 million of new construction

*The median price of an existing single family home in San Mateo County was $1,770,000 as of April 2018; this is the highest median home price in the state and is an increase of 18% over the previous year, topping San Francisco County for the second consecutive year

And there you have it 🙂 information taken from Santa Clara and San Mateo counties Tax Assessors web sites which has tons of interesting information–I’ll leave you with one more fun fact:  over 302,416 folk accessed the Santa Clara County Assessor’s website, totaling 1.2 million page views; over the past 24 years Larry Stone’s been in office, the assessment roll has quadrupled, and staffing has increased by just 9.4 percent–we owe them a big thank you, it’s mind boggling how they get it all done.