12th year of record growth for San Mateo County

The combined assessment roll has increased by $145.5 billion from 12 years ago. This is the 12th consecutive year in which a new historical high has been set. The secured portion of the roll, which is approximately 96.3% of the total roll and primarily consists of real property, increased in value by 8.37%. The unsecured portion makes up the remaining 3.7% of the total roll and increased in value by 7.36%. The unsecured roll includes business assets such as commercial airline property at SFO and business property in leased locations throughout the county.

One of the reasons for the increase was the growth rate for single-family homes, which saw an increase of 34.4%. Condominium and townhome sales topped 54% in growth. Both contributed more than $13 billion to the 2022-23 assessment roll increase.

“2021 marked yet another record year of roll growth for San Mateo County,” Church said in a press release. “Similar to 2020, this year’s increase was again largely due to record-setting single-family home values driven by strong demand for homes that continued as we came out of the pandemic. Moreover, commercial values have also recovered significantly and contributed to the increase.”

Total assessed values increased in all 20 cities and unincorporated areas, with increases ranging from 5.24% to as high as 12.64%, and an overall increase of 8.34%. The county’s unincorporated areas, which include San Francisco International Airport, returned to a positive growth rate of 6.82%, primarily due to resurgence of business activity at the airport.

Commercial airline assessments, that had seen a decrease in 2020, declined by another 14%.

The property tax revenue generated is approximately 1% of the annual property assessment roll and this year will increase to $2.88 billion. Approximately 45% of the revenue will go to schools within the county, 25% to the county, 18% to cities, 10% to special districts and 2% to former redevelopment agencies.

One factor in the growth of the San Mateo County secured roll is new commercial development. In all, 64.6 million square feet of new construction are expected to be completed in the county over the next six to eight years. A total of 9.12 million square feet are under construction, 13.9 million square feet have planning approval, and 41.6 million square feet are under review. Approximately 17 million square feet of new construction have been completed in the last five years, according to the Assessor’s Office.

The top five cities for new commercial development are Redwood City at 22.1 million square feet, South San Francisco at 16.7 million square feet, Menlo Park at 11.4 million square feet, Brisbane at 8.2 million square feet and San Mateo at 4.9 million square feet, according to the Assessor’s Office.

Another contributing factor was sales and ownership changes. Sales and changes in ownership totaled $11.6 billion, or about 54% of this year’s secured roll increase of $21.4 billion. Residential sales accounted for about 77% of that dollar growth while commercial sales accounted for 23%, according to the Assessor’s Office.

According to the San Mateo County Association of Realtors, median sales prices of single-family homes in San Mateo County increased by 11.68% in 2021 to $1,898,500, as compared to the median price of $1,700,000 in 2020. Total dollar value of sales increased significantly by 51.06% and the number of sales also significantly increased by 34.4% for the calendar year. Residential values are at a record high, so when residential property is reassessed at market value due to a change in ownership, the new value can be substantially higher than the previous assessment, according to the Assessor’s Office.

In addition, the record increase can be attributed to the continued recovery from the pandemic. As the restrictions gradually lifted, businesses began to reopen and air travel resumed, Church said.

The Bay Area had some of the highest business closure rates in the nation during the height of the pandemic in 2020, according to data from Yelp. However, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bay Area has regained 75.8% of the jobs it lost at the outset of the widespread business shutdowns at the start of the pandemic in March and April of 2020, according to the Assessor’s Office.

Unemployment in San Mateo County, home to strong technology and life sciences industries, has decreased to 1.7%, as of May 2022, making it the lowest unemployment rate in the state of California. In total, 33,500 jobs have been regained in the county since December 2020. San Mateo is one of nine counties which significantly contribute to the economy of the San Francisco Bay Area as an urban center, according to the EDD.