Originally published in the OC Register
The new proposed tax plan is expected to impact at least 11 percent of Southern California home buyers.
The property tax deduction will be lowered for almost 270,000 Southern California homeowners, one out of every 15, if the U.S. House and Senate pass the latest version of the GOP tax overhaul plan, an analysis by Irvine-based Attom Data Solutions shows.
The mortgage interest deduction also will be lowered for an estimated 14,300 home buyers, or one out of every nine purchasers, the analysis shows.
The latest version of the tax bill caps deductions at $10,000 for property taxes and some other form of state or local taxes (sales or income). It also caps mortgage deductions for interest paid on up to $750,000 of debt on loans issued after the bill takes effect. Mortgage deductions would continue to be capped at the old limit of $1 million for existing home loans.
Attom analyzed this year’s home sales with mortgages greater than $750,000 as a guide to how many future buyers could be impacted by the proposed $750,000 mortgage deduction limit. It also calculated how many homeowners pay more than the proposed $10,000 limit on property taxes.
Nationwide, the real estate data firm found 3.9 percent of future home buyers, or almost 99,000, face decreases in their mortgage interest deduction. More than 4 million of U.S. property owners, or 4.4 percent, pay more than $10,000 in property taxes.
Locally, Attom’s analysis shows high-cost Orange and Los Angeles counties both have significant numbers of property owners and potential future home buyers who could see reduced benefits from owning real estate. The impact in the Inland Empire would be much smaller.
The results show:
- Orange County: 17.3 percent of homes sold this year so far (4,450) had mortgages greater than $750,000; 9.6 percent of property owners (78,011) pay more than $10,000 a year in property taxes.
- Los Angeles County: 15.5 percent of homes sold (9,197) had mortgages greater than $750,000; 9.2 percent of property owners (165,078) paid more than $10,000 a year in property taxes.
- Riverside County: 1.7 percent of homes sold (458) had mortgages greater than $750,000; 2.3 percent of property owners (18,094) paid more than $10,000 a year in property taxes.
- San Bernardino County: 0.9 percent of homes sold (190) had mortgages greater than $750,000; 1.1 percent of property owners (6,345) paid more than $10,000 a year in property taxes.
In all, 10.8 percent of Southern California home buyers from those four counties face reduced mortgage interest deductions under the GOP tax plan, while 6.7 percent face reduced property tax deductions.
Impacts are even greater in other U.S. metro areas with higher property values.
Almost 64 percent of New York homes sold this year and 58 percent of San Francisco homes required mortgages exceeding the proposed $750,000 mortgage deduction limit. In other Bay Area counties, the number requiring bigger mortgages ranged from 17.5 percent in Contra Costa County to 55.2 percent in San Mateo County.
Seventy-three percent of property owners in the New York suburb of Westchester County pay more than $10,000 in property taxes, while 24.6 percent of San Francisco property owners have bigger property tax burdens.
Twelve percent, or 35,500, of future California home buyers face reduced mortgage interest deductions, the numbers show. Just under 8 percent of homeowners in the state, or nearly 730,000, faced reduced property tax deductions.
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