property taxes in orange county (Aliso Viejo: condo, assessors, house)

[loriw_oconnell]

how high are property taxes in orange county? which areas are the worst/best? i'm moving from austin and ours are incredibly high (I pay almost $20,000 for a $700,000, 4500SF house) but we don't have state income taxes so it tends to even out. curious as to the differences. thanks

[bhcompy]

Parts built before the 80s/90s have no Mello Roos, so it's mostly around 1.1% of the purchase price yearly. Parts built after may have Mello Roos and the total between the two and other assessments can be up to around 2%(give or take a few tenths, from what I've seen).

[cnev3]

i pay $2k a year for a 1bedroom condo in huntington beach.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by loriw_oconnell

how high are property taxes in orange county? which areas are the worst/best? i'm moving from austin and ours are incredibly high (I pay almost $20,000 for a $700,000, 4500SF house) but we don't have state income taxes so it tends to even out. curious as to the differences. thanks

You can visit the OC Tax Assessors website and get the property tax for any property in OC.

[flo2900]

Originally Posted by loriw_oconnell

how high are property taxes in orange county? which areas are the worst/best? i'm moving from austin and ours are incredibly high (I pay almost $20,000 for a $700,000, 4500SF house) but we don't have state income taxes so it tends to even out. curious as to the differences. thanks

1% of prchase price plus area taxes...roughly average 1.2%

[woodrough]

It is important to look at the specific areas you're interested in. Here's an example from Aliso Viejo where the taxes are roughly 1.9% of the assessed value (the property is assessed at $758k, then it comes down to $751k with the homeowner exemption; the 1.9% is based on the $758k value because that's where the purchase price would be slotted in).


A1 BASIC LEVY RATE 1.00000 $751,000.00 $7,510.00
A1 METRO WATER D-MWDOC 0.00370 $751,000.00 $27.78
A4 MOUL-NIG ID#6 BOND 0.12315 $318,751.00 $392.54
Sub Total: $7,930.32
*** SPECIAL ASSESSMENT USER FEES***
BA MOSQ,FIRE ANT ASSMT (866)807-6864 $5.02
B3 VECTOR CONTROL CHG (866)807-6864 $1.92
R1 MELLO-ROOS R1 (888)510-0290 $5,647.36
R4 MELLO-ROOS R4 (949)955-1500 $854.84
Sub Total: $6,509.14

Total Tax: $14,439.46

Sorry for the formatting, I can't figure out how to do "preformatted" mode or insert a table on this board. But anyway, $14,439.46 / $758,000 = 1.905%

[Charles]

Originally Posted by woodrough

It is important to look at the specific areas you're interested in. Here's an example from Aliso Viejo where the taxes are roughly 1.9% of the assessed value (the property is assessed at $758k, then it comes down to $751k with the homeowner exemption; the 1.9% is based on the $758k value because that's where the purchase price would be slotted in).


A1 BASIC LEVY RATE 1.00000 $751,000.00 $7,510.00
A1 METRO WATER D-MWDOC 0.00370 $751,000.00 $27.78
A4 MOUL-NIG ID#6 BOND 0.12315 $318,751.00 $392.54
Sub Total: $7,930.32
*** SPECIAL ASSESSMENT USER FEES***
BA MOSQ,FIRE ANT ASSMT (866)807-6864 $5.02
B3 VECTOR CONTROL CHG (866)807-6864 $1.92
R1 MELLO-ROOS R1 (888)510-0290 $5,647.36
R4 MELLO-ROOS R4 (949)955-1500 $854.84
Sub Total: $6,509.14

Total Tax: $14,439.46

Sorry for the formatting, I can't figure out how to do "preformatted" mode or insert a table on this board. But anyway, $14,439.46 / $758,000 = 1.905%

One thing about Mello Roos, they have an expiration date. So in some year, that $7K MR tax goes away. There's a phone number on that sheet somewhere that you can call and get the expiration date. So, it may not be that bad. For example, suppose you are considering a home built in 1995 with a 20 year mello roos tax. You'd only have a couple more years until it is expired.

[woodrough]

Yes, but that house was built in 2007, so I think it's going to be a while. Our house is older. I called the number and the (vastly lower) Mello Roos on our house expire in 2019, but they said that they also haven't used the maximum authorized amount of bonds, so they could still issue new bonds, which would expire later (and also make the payment go up). They also said that even when the bond expires, the county can still levy the tax to pay for fire, police, etc. if it's needed. So it's good to look into, but I'm not sure it's safe to rely on it going away completely.

[pacific2]

Originally Posted by woodrough

It is important to look at the specific areas you're interested in. Here's an example from Aliso Viejo where the taxes are roughly 1.9% of the assessed value (the property is assessed at $758k, then it comes down to $751k with the homeowner exemption; the 1.9% is based on the $758k value because that's where the purchase price would be slotted in).


A1 BASIC LEVY RATE 1.00000 $751,000.00 $7,510.00
A1 METRO WATER D-MWDOC 0.00370 $751,000.00 $27.78
A4 MOUL-NIG ID#6 BOND 0.12315 $318,751.00 $392.54
Sub Total: $7,930.32
*** SPECIAL ASSESSMENT USER FEES***
BA MOSQ,FIRE ANT ASSMT (866)807-6864 $5.02
B3 VECTOR CONTROL CHG (866)807-6864 $1.92
R1 MELLO-ROOS R1 (888)510-0290 $5,647.36
R4 MELLO-ROOS R4 (949)955-1500 $854.84
Sub Total: $6,509.14

Total Tax: $14,439.46

Sorry for the formatting, I can't figure out how to do "preformatted" mode or insert a table on this board. But anyway, $14,439.46 / $758,000 = 1.905%

That sounds like Glenwood, is it? I heard that Mello-Roos is extremely high there.

Mello-Roos fees vary according to address. This place in Aliso lists for $715,000 and has total taxes of $8,930.64:
17 DIAMOND GATE, Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 | MLS# S692800

A1 BASIC LEVY RATE 1.00000 698,340 6,983.40
A1 METRO WATER D-MWDOC .00370 698,340 25.83
SPL ASMNT DIST DEBT****
A4 MOUL-NIG ID#6 BOND .12315 421,564 519.15
SPL ASMNT USER FEES**** FOR INFO CALL:
BA MOSQ,FIRE ANT ASSMT (866)807-6864 5.02
B3 VECTOR CONTROL CHG (866)807-6864 1.92
C7 MWD WATER STDBY CHG (866)807-6864 10.08
R4 MELLO-ROOS R4 (949)955-1500 520.33
R7 MELLO-ROOS R7 (949)955-1500 864.91
TOTAL: 1.12685 8,930.64

[woodrough]

I'm not sure if it was Glenwood (not sure where that is). I just picked a random house off the list in Aliso Viejo around the $700k the OP mentioned, and found that one. I didn't save the parcel number, unfortunately.

Note that on the house you found, the tax is based on a taxable value of $698,340, not $715,000. So the taxes will be a little bit higher than $8930.64 if someone buys it for $715k. But obviously not by much, and the vastly lower Mello-Roos make the difference.

Also, note that the total rate shown on the bottom of those bills is really misleading. It says 1.12685, but that's wrong in two ways. First, it just adds up all the values from the rate column, but some of those rates are applied against the full value and some are just against the land value. So in that way, it makes the rate look higher than it actually is. It's a totally non-sensical way to calculate it, and I don't know why they do that.

On the flip side, the taxes and fees that aren't based on the value of the property aren't included at all, because they don't have an entry in the "rate" column. And that includes Mello-Roos. So in this case, it says 1.12685%, but the actual effective rate is 1.279% (of course, that effective rate would go down with a higher taxable value, because the Mello-Roos would stay the same).