Buying a Sacramento home? Use this tool to calculate your Supplemental Tax Bill...

Last week I attended a presentation by Kathleen Kelleher, Sacramento County's Tax Assessor. I've met her several times and seen several presentations regarding Sacramento County tax assessment and collection, but this time she introduced a new tool available for use to calculate the "Supplemental Tax Assessment." You can find the Supplemental Tax Calculator here.

What is a Supplemental Tax Assessment bill? In a nutshell, its a bill to collect the difference between the previous owner's tax assessment, and the new owner's tax assessment. Clear as mud, right? If you buy a house, you will receive MULTIPLE disclosures regarding the fact you may have to pay an additional tax bill at some point in time after closing.

Here is an example from a real life scenario. Let's say you are buying a home in East Sacramento that has been owned by the same family for many years. They purchased the property in 1968, and their current assessed value is $98,156. Their annual tax bill is $1,214 including the 1% base assessment, and all the "direct levies." You are purchasing the home for $400,000. Your new tax assessed value will be based on your acquisition cost, and adjusted annually for inflation. Obviously there is a significant difference in the previous owners tax assessment, vs your new tax assessment - $301,844.

Under these circumstances, you should budget for a relatively large "Supplemental Tax Assessment" bill. In this instance, using the calculator online and assuming you close on March 31, you will receive a "Partial Supplemental Tax Bill" for $754 within a few months of closing, and then another one a few months after that for $3,018. That's something you will want to budget for! The amount owed can change based on when during the state's fiscal year you close your transaction, so keep that in mind and use the online tool for help.

Obviously not everyone buys a home where there is such a gap between the previous owner's assessment and the new owner's assessment. In fact, in the days of short sales and foreclosures, often times the new owner's tax assessment was way less than that of the previous owner. But it is something to be aware of and this calculator can help you budget for that...

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Sacramento Real Estate Statistics - February 2015

After a slower January for sales volume and price (which is pretty typical if you look at trends over the last decade -- just look at this graph for last January 2014 or look at my post from a year ago), Sacramento's median home price for February 2015 bounced back up to $282,000. This does not surprise me at all, and February was a brisk month for my business. March is going to be even busier for me, and I have noticed A LOT of pending sales...I'm not anticipating a huge upswing in price for next month, and expect things to continue with some modest price appreciation this year. Our current median home price is still FAR below the median from the peak of Sacramento's real estate market in the summer of 2005 (which was just a touch under $400,000). But it's nice to say that it's also FAR above the median home price at the bottom of the Sacramento market in winter 2011 (about $160,000).

A trend that I am continuing to notice for the last several months is folks who purchased a home at the bottom of the market in 2009-2011 are calling wanting to sell their home and purchase a larger one (or smaller one, relocate to a different neighborhood, etc). If you purchased a Sacramento home during that timeframe, there's a good chance your home has increased in value in the range of 25%+ depending on when you bought and where your home is located...so it's a great time to do sell and purchase another home. Of course if you would like me to provide you an estimate of your home's value, I'm happy to do that. Just email me. Another thing I am noticing is that I have several clients who are planning to list their homes, but want to find their replacement property first. "Contingent offers" (offers that are contingent on the sale of another home) are definitely making a huge comeback.

Back to reality, but spring training in AZ sure was fun!

If you follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram you may already know that this week my family and I went to Arizona for Spring Training! My mom, my brother's girlfriend and I are quite the "Gamer Babes." So much fun, and what is even more exciting is that this year the Sacramento Rivercats will be the AAA SF Giants affiliate right here in town!

Selling a Sacramento investment property is a lot different than selling your own home. Part II; Disclosure...

A few weeks ago I wrote about how selling an investment property is a lot different than selling your own home. An investment property is any rental property - for example, a duplex, triplex or fourplex, or a single family home or condo. There are many of key differences and things to consider when selling these properties. Last week, I wrote mainly about how to work with your tenants so they help rather than hinder the investment property listing and selling process.

Today I would like to follow up on all that by talking about another one of the things that the sellers of investment property need to consider: the fact that you don't live in the property, and you may not know much about the property to disclose to a buyer.

I always give my sellers a full packet of disclosure documents to fill out before the property goes on the market. First, you should note that there is a check-box on the Real Estate Transfer Disclosure Statement where you can note if you are, or are not, occupying the property. You would check the "not" box. Second, I will tell you that it is a good idea to overtly state in your disclosures that you have never lived in the property as your primary residence, or that you have not lived in the property in ____ years. A good place to do this is the Seller Property Questionnaire. On the 4th page there is an "Other" Section where this statement can go.

Hopefully as a landlord, you have been keeping accurate maintenance records for the property. The big-ticket things you probably know and can disclose -- for example, you probably know approximately when you replaced the roof, or that you replaced the dishwasher before the current tenant moved in, that you have a company spray for bugs every other month, etc. And you should note those dates and details in your disclosures. If you have contractor receipts, it is best to include copies of them with your disclosures as well.

But what about the non-big-ticket things? This information can be of equal importance to a buyer, but as the seller you may not be aware of the property's certain idiosyncrasies that only someone who lives in the house will. Like the fact there are 4 constantly barking dogs next door, there is street sweeper that makes lots of noise every Tuesday morning at 4am, that vagrants rummage through the trash cans at night, that the bathtub has a slow drain, that airplanes fly overhead sometimes, that the neighbor grows marijuana in the backyard, or that the downstairs tenant can hear the footsteps of the upstairs tenant...or that the tenant you think is low maintenance and never complains just didn't choose to tell you that the water heater is leaking, that the bathroom exhaust fan stopped working, etc.

Remember my last post about communication with your tenants when it comes time to sell? This is the perfect time to schedule a walk-through of the unit -- not only to talk about showings and introduce your Realtor, but also to ask your tenant if there are any little things like this you may want to disclose. If during your walk-through, you discover the water heater is leaking, that is a good opportunity to get it repaired before the property goes on the market, and then be sure to disclose that the repair was made. Ask your tenants about potential nuisances and disclose them. Something like "Per tenant, neighboring dogs bark at night" should be adequate.

One thing I also highly recommend is augmenting your disclosures with some professional inspections. For example, it is a really good idea to get a termite inspection before the property goes on the market, and either make the recommended repairs for a clearance, or just use the written report itself as a disclosure.

It's definitely in the seller's best interest to make disclosures as transparent and accurate as possible. Inadequate disclosures can lead to buyer frustration and potential issues with the new owner down the line...

Read my previous post on this topic: How to work with tenants when selling an investment property.