Portland Property Tax going up in 2018

In order to understand how your property tax in Portland (Multnomah County) is going to rise, you need a basic understanding of how it is calculated. Go to this article we recently wrote to get a full understanding of how your tax bill is calculated by Multnomah county. You can look up your current Portland property tax at MultCoPropTax.org.

Property Tax Hikes

Fall of 2016 we wrote about two major bonds put forth for public voting: the Portland Public Schools Bond and a Portland Affording Housing Bond, the school bond at roughly $750 million + and the housing bond at roughly $250 million +. Both passed, and the school bond most recently. If you’re looking Portland school bond information up, you’ll notice Portland public schools passed a $482 million dollar bond in 2012 that is still on your property tax bill. So who is going to pay the new one billion dollar bill? Portland homeowners will pay it exclusively through their yearly property tax bill.

Bonds Raise your Property Taxes

If you’re current Portland home has an assessed value of $400,000, due to the new school bond alone, it would increase by $1.40 per thousand or $560 a year. The 2017-2018 property tax bill will include this increase as well as the affordable housing bill bond increase. This is in addition to strong appreciation in the Portland housing market. Everyone’s assessed value will likely go up by 10% or more. So let’s say your current 2016-17 tax bill is $5,000. It could increase to $6500 or more in your 2017-2018 bill, due to your increased assessment value and the new passed city bonds.

Should I rent then instead of purchasing a Portland home?
If you are considering renting a regular home, townhome, or condo, in Multnomah county it won’t help. Investors will pass their cost of ownership onto renters. Rental rates are going to go up in view of these bonds.

Should I move out of Multnomah County?

I estimate Multnomah county’s property tax rate at around 1.3% (rounding up a bit) in 2016-17 tax year. In the 2018 tax year this will likely go up to 1.45% or so. This would still not put us in the top ten states for highest property tax rates. Of course, we are definitely not in a top ten lowest property tax rate state either. Home values matter when looking at high property tax rates. In Nebraska, for instance, they actually have a higher property tax rates, but the home values are less than half of ours. In New Jersey, the home values are higher and the property tax rates are higher, so you have to look at the big picture. Portland tax is not in the bottom fifty percent, but it is not in the top ten percent, or top twenty percent for property tax rates. Add this to the fact that we still have no sales tax, and things don’t look so bad. Of course, if you work here or own a business, you also have to figure in various employment and business taxes which are not cheap in Multnomah County.

Where are Portland property taxes headed?
Up. Based primarily on your assessed home value, with this increasing Portland housing market, the forecast for Portland property taxes is nothing but up for the near and distant future.

P.S. Want to read more? Find out why Portland property taxes went up in 2017.