How revaluations are done

Every four years, the six-person Orange County Tax Assessor’s office reassesses the tax value of 53,000 pieces of residential and commercial property and other real estate in the county. But the actual process begins about two years before the revaluation takes effect, when assessors begin tracking real estate sales and evaluate how close overall tax values are to current market values. That establishes if the aggregate value needs to be adjusted up or down. When the most recent revaluation was finished, it showed that the county’s overall property tax value had risen 26 percent.
“After we apply the county-wide adjustments, then we start looking at each neighborhood and try and figure out, ‘Okay, well, we’re still a little low in this neighborhood, we’re a little high in this neighborhood, so we need to make adjustments,’” says Orange County Tax Assessor John Smith. The team periodically revisits neighborhoods it’s already assessed to determine if action is needed to keep the new values in line with changes in the market.