Cities in Contra Costa County Drop Property Values

Property values going down –  is no news in the present housing market situations. In fact there are good news reports from many parts of the country that home sales is picking up, including that of the foreclosure properties. We can only draw solace that the fall in property values is slowly thinning in size – from double digit figures during last year to single digit figures so far in this year of 2010.

News reports appearing in San Francisco Chronicle, about Contra Costa County are somewhat encouraging in that although the property values in cities of this county still facing south (dropping down) they are not dramatic, as they were in 2009. Across the Contra Costa County, on an average, the assessed property values decreased by only 3.4 percent, but the decline in tax revenue because of reduced property tax collection continues.

Here is the list of cities and the percentage decrease as reported:

Richmond    12.82%

San Pablo       5.90%

Hercules       5.28%

Antioch       4.88%

Brentwood        4.10%

Oakley        2.83%

Danville        2.10%

Rest of the cities of Concord; Moraga; Pinole; Pleasant Hill; Pittsburg; Martinez; San Ramon – in that order have dropped assessed values of properties in percentage ranging from 1.91 to 1.45 respectively. In the case of cities like Clayton; Walnut Creek and Orinda – the drop in value of properties is going down from 0.96 to 0.35 percent.

Contra Costa County consists an array of cities ranging in their economy – from somewhat Industrial city of Richmond to affluent Danville. It is pointed out that the largest drops in values have taken place in cities of working class communities, where already the home values lingered in the lower end.

Another point of interest is the two cities – El Cerrito and Lafayette – have shed assessed value of properties by 1.09 percent and 0.97 percent only. The County officials were a relieved lot, as they expected the property value drops should be higher, as experienced during the last two years, when more than 10 percent decrease was recorded.

The County has been experiencing budget cuts arising out of lesser revenue collection through property tax levies.  Overall the sad-state-of-affairs are not over yet and they can smile if only the market values are going up.

Posted by Amitesh Kumar on Jul 16 2010. Filed under Foreclosures, Housing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry