3-2-1 Real Estate Ready: Prop 19 and taking your tax base with you

This week's three insights from me, two quotes from others, one question to carry with you...

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I.

Last week I wrote that your low assessment is part of why leaving feels expensive. Here's the part most people over fifty-five don't know: you may not have to leave it behind. Proposition 19 lets you take it with you.

II.

If you're fifty-five or older, you can move your assessed value from your current home to a replacement home anywhere in California. Not just within Solano. Anywhere in the state. You can do it up to three times. Both properties have to be your primary residence, and the two transactions have to happen within two years of each other in either order. If you're married, only one of you needs to be fifty-five. And if the new house costs more than the old one sold for, you don't lose the benefit. The difference simply gets added on top of your existing base. A larger tax bill than you have now, yes. Nothing like starting over at today's price.

III.

What I want you to notice is what this changes about the conversation. For years I've sat with couples in a house that stopped fitting them a decade ago, and the sentence that ends the discussion is almost always some version of "we can't afford to move, our taxes would triple." Sometimes that's true. Often it isn't, and nobody ever told them. There are real requirements here, there's a claim form, there are deadlines, and the sequencing matters more than people expect. This is a conversation for your county assessor and your CPA, not for a newsletter. But if you've been sitting still for years because of a number you assumed, it's worth finding out whether the number is actually yours.

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"We suffer more in imagination than in reality."

— Seneca

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find."

— Matthew 7:7

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ONE QUESTION TO CARRY WITH YOU:

What decision are you not making because of something you never verified?

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Thanks for reading,

Samuel Vera

DRE #01911575

Vera Co Real Estate Team | Rapisarda Real Estate

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