Senior Downsizing Real Estate Agent in Newport Beach, CA
Paula Aragone represents owners aged 55 and over selling a Newport Beach home they have held for decades, where the property tax base can follow them to the next house under Proposition 19 and the taxable gain is usually the largest single figure in the whole decision.
If you are at least 55 years old on the day the Newport Beach house sells, Proposition 19 lets you carry your existing base year value to a replacement primary residence anywhere in California, up to three times, provided you buy or build it within two years of that sale. That is the property tax side, and it is the side that usually works. The harder number is income tax, because on a house held for forty years the gain can be several times the section 121 exclusion.
| Who qualifies | Age 55 or older at the time of sale, or severely and permanently disabled |
|---|---|
| How many times | Up to three as a claimant. Propositions 60 and 90 allowed one. |
| Where it reaches | Any replacement primary residence in California, county to county |
| The window | Two years between the two transactions, in either order |
| The claim | Form BOE-19-B, within three years of purchase or completion |
| The Newport item | A pier and dock permit transfers on its own track, signed at closing |
The Property Tax Moves. The Capital Gain Does Not.
Proposition 19 solves the smaller of the two problems, and solves it well. Section 121 was written in 1997 and has never been adjusted for inflation since, and on a long held Newport Beach parcel it is the binding constraint.
The exclusion is 250,000 dollars for a single filer and 500,000 dollars on a joint return, and those two figures have not changed since 1997. Everything above them is fully taxable federally, fully taxable in California, and potentially subject to the 3.8 percent Net Investment Income Tax where modified adjusted gross income exceeds 250,000 dollars filing jointly or 200,000 dollars filing single. The Net Investment Income Tax does not reach the excluded portion.
The arithmetic is unforgiving on a house bought decades ago and held ever since. The excludable amount is fixed while the gain is not, so the exclusion covers a smaller share of the gain with every year of ownership, and on the oldest holdings it covers very little of it. What reduces the taxable figure is documented adjusted basis and selling costs, which come off the amount realised. California conforms to the same 250,000 and 500,000 dollar figures and the same two of five year tests, and taxes the excess at ordinary income rates, because California has no preferential capital gains rate.
At escrow the state withholds by default. FTB Publication 1016 sets the default at 3 and one third percent of the sales price, with an exemption for a principal residence qualifying under section 121 and an exemption where the total sales price is 100,000 dollars or less, claimed on Forms 593 and 593-V. That exemption is claimed, not automatic, and a seller who does not claim it lends the state a large sum until the return is filed.
There is one situation where the whole problem can disappear, and it turns on how title was held. Under IRC 1014(b)(6), when the first spouse of a married couple dies, both halves of community property take a new basis at the date of death value, not only the decedent's half. For a widow or widower in Newport Beach that erases decades of appreciation for income tax purposes. Whether a particular property qualifies is a legal and tax question, but knowing to ask it is the difference between a competent conversation and an expensive one.
The date of death appraisal is what protects that basis, and it is the single most valuable document in a surviving spouse's file. There is also a hard deadline attached to the exclusion itself. Under IRC 121(b)(4) a surviving spouse may use the full 500,000 dollar limit only if the sale occurs no later than two years after the date of death, the section 121(b)(2)(A) requirements were met immediately before the death, and the survivor has not remarried by the date of sale. Sell in month 23 and the limit is 500,000 dollars. Sell in month 25 and it is 250,000 dollars.
Two further provisions catch Newport Beach owners more often than they catch anyone else, because so much of this housing has been rented at some point. Under IRC 121(d)(6) the exclusion does not cover gain up to the amount of depreciation adjustments attributable to periods after 6 May 1997, which matters if the property ever carried a rental or a home office deduction. Under IRC 121(b)(5) gain allocated to periods of nonqualified use, generally post 2008 periods when the property was not the principal residence, is not excludable at all.
How a Newport Beach Downsizing Sale Is Sequenced
Nine steps in the order that keeps both tax clocks intact. Two of them belong months before a sign goes in the ground, and those two decide most of what the move actually costs.
Establish the age test and count what has already been used
Proposition 19 requires the claimant to be at least 55 at the time of sale, and allows up to three transfers where Propositions 60 and 90 allowed one. Only one spouse needs to be 55, but that spouse must be on title to both the original and the replacement. Whether a couple counts as one claimant for the three is a question for the county assessor.
Model the section 121 exposure before anyone views the house
The exclusion is 250,000 dollars single and 500,000 dollars on a joint return, and it has not moved since 1997. It requires ownership and use as a principal residence for periods totalling 24 months within the five years ending on the sale date, and no other section 121 exclusion claimed in the prior two years. On a Newport Beach parcel held since the 1970s the gain routinely exceeds it.
Decide the order of the two transactions
Selling first and buying inside the following year gives a 105 percent factor on the adjusted full cash value of the original, and a purchase in the second year gives 110 percent. Buying first drops the factor to 100 percent and starts an unrefundable period of full market value tax on the new house. The panels further down set out both routes in full.
Deal with the contents, on a calendar
Forty years of a house is not a weekend. Set dates for what goes to the replacement, what goes to family, what is sold and what is discarded, and start with the rooms nobody has opened since the children left. The two year Proposition 19 window is generous until it is spent sorting a garage, and Newport Beach island and peninsula houses have very little storage to sort into.
Decide what you will repair and what you will not
Pre 1940 island and peninsula cottages bring knob and tube remnants, cast iron and galvanised supply and waste, asbestos era flooring and pipe wrap, and salt air corrosion on anything metal. The 1950s to 1970s tracts add Federal Pacific and Zinsco panels and aluminium branch wiring. Not every item should be repaired before sale. Every item has to be disclosed either way.
Build the disclosure file from records rather than memory
The Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement under Civil Code 1103.2, water conserving fixtures under Civil Code 1101.4 for anything built before 1994, the smoke alarm statement under Health and Safety Code 13113.8 and carbon monoxide devices under Health and Safety Code 17926. In Newport Beach the Residential Building Records report pairs permit history with a zoning check and settles arguments about work done decades ago.
Market it, and run the harbour file alongside
Broad exposure is what produces a choice of offers rather than one, and in Newport Beach a second permit file runs beside the listing. The city inspects the pier, issues a deficiency letter where it fails, reinspects after correction, and requires a transfer application signed by seller, buyer and any joint permittee. Turnaround is five to fifteen working days and a fee applies.
Close, and keep the two closings in step
Escrow on the original is where the section 121 exemption from state withholding is claimed on Forms 593 and 593-V, where the pier transfer signatures are collected at close, and where the closing date has to be held against the replacement purchase. If the two closings sit days apart rather than months, tell both escrow officers at the start.
File BOE-19-B with the assessor of the replacement county
The claim goes to the assessor of the county where the replacement property sits, not the county of the original, and it is due within three years of the purchase or of completion of new construction. File late and relief begins with the calendar year in which the claim is filed. Every year of delay past three is a year of full market value tax that is never refunded.
What the Address Does to a Downsizing Sale
Stairs, storage, maintenance and whether there is a dock attached are the four things that change from one part of this city to the next. All four affect what the house is worth to a buyer and what it costs to leave it.
Balboa Peninsula
Ocean on one side, harbour on the other, and the densest and most rental exposed part of the city. Narrow lots and stairs are the norm, which is very often the reason the conversation started.
Peninsula Point
Built from the early 1920s with 1950s Balboa cottages filling in, Cape Cod and Eastern Seaboard styling, quieter than the rest of the peninsula. Old stock, and long tenure, so the improvement history is usually long and undocumented.
Balboa Island, Little Balboa Island and Collins Isle
Dredged into existence in 1908 and 1909, standard lot thirty feet by eighty five, roughly 17,621 persons per square mile. Collins Isle holds about eight homes behind a one lane bridge. Storage is the constraint on clearing a house here.
Lido Isle
Master planned in the 1920s on a former mudflat, roughly 850 homes on Via and Strada street names, lots about thirty to seventy feet wide, community docks, private beaches and a clubhouse. Association amenities often survive the move better than the house does.
Bay Island
The only island in the harbour with no car access, about 26 bayfronts, originally a duck hunting club. Everything that leaves the house leaves on foot or by boat, which has to be planned rather than assumed.
Harbor Island
Roughly 30 to 34 private residences on Harbor Island Road, gated, every property waterfront with one or more docks. The dock is a separate permit file and belongs in the timeline from the first week.
Linda Isle
Formerly Shark Island, brought into the city in 1954 and developed in the 1970s, horseshoe shaped, roughly 106 waterfront lots, guarded, every home with its own dock. The 1970s build era carries its own inspection list.
Beacon Bay
Lower bay, community dock and slips, tennis and basketball. Historically a ground lease community, which is a title question a buyer's counsel raises every time and which has to be settled before anything is assumed about assessment.
Promontory Bay
About 62 custom waterfront homes, each with a private dock. Two permit tracks and one closing date, and the pier inspection is what decides whether they meet.
Bayshores
Gated enclave of about 249 homes on the turning basin, with private beaches and a children's park. A community where the association carries some of the maintenance an owner may no longer want to carry personally.
Dover Shores
A 1950s development on the west side of the Back Bay with waterfront homes and private community beaches. Old enough for panels, galvanised supply and single pane aluminium windows to appear in the report.
Newport Heights and Cliff Haven
Bluff top above Pacific Coast Highway, larger lots, older stock, walkable to Newport Harbor High. Larger lots mean more grounds to maintain, which is a common reason the decision gets made here.
Eastbluff
Irvine Company era tract known for its greenbelts, next to the Back Bay bluffs. Consistent product and a deep buyer pool, which shortens the marketing side of the timeline.
Big Canyon
Opened in the early 1970s, a gated golf course community on a 414 acre village site across from Newport Center, with sub associations around the country club. Two sets of governing documents on most sales here.
One Ford Road
Built in three phases from 1999 to 2002, 371 homes across Balboa, Carmel, Stonybrook, Summerhouse and Providence plus eight custom homes on Troon Drive, with a 24 hour guard gate, fitness centre, three pools, croquet park and putting green.
Harbor View Homes, the Port Streets
The family tract inland of MacArthur that feeds Andersen Elementary, and the most consistently school driven submarket in the city. Buyers here are moving up while the seller is moving down, which is a good match.
West Newport, Newport Shores and Balboa Coves
The northern end, with Newport Shores under its own community association and Balboa Coves gated off Pacific Coast Highway with private docks. Mixed stock and mixed permit histories.
Newport Coast
Annexed around 2001 and 2002. Crystal Cove, the Pelican communities, Pacific Ridge, Newport Ridge and Altezza sit under layered master and sub associations, and this is where Community Facilities District special taxes appear in this city.
Six Ways a Newport Beach Downsizing Move Loses Money Quietly
Newport Beach, California
None of these look like problems while they are happening. Each one shows up later as a permanent line on a tax bill or a return.
The replacement was bought first and nobody counted the factor
Buying before selling is allowed and the two year window runs in both directions. What it costs is the cushion. The adjusted full cash value of the original is computed at 100 percent when the replacement is bought first, at 105 percent when it is bought within the first year after the sale, and at 110 percent within the second year. Where the replacement is the more expensive of the two, buying first produces a permanently higher transferred taxable value.
There is a second cost that is not refunded. The assessor reassesses the replacement at full market value on purchase, and the owner pays tax at that value for the whole period between the purchase and the sale of the original. The corrected base year value applies going forward from the date the original sells, not backwards to the purchase.
BOE-19-B was filed in year four
The claim is due within three years of the purchase of the replacement or of completion of new construction. Filed later, relief is granted beginning with the calendar year in which the claim is filed, with the base year value adjusted for inflation from the original transfer date. The companion forms in the same series are BOE-19-D where the claimant is severely and permanently disabled and BOE-19-V for victims of a wildfire or governor declared disaster, which is the one case not subject to the three use cap. All of them are filed with the county assessor.
Nothing about that is discretionary and nothing is refunded. Each year between the deadline and the filing is a full year of tax at market value that could have been avoided by posting a form. Adult children handling the paperwork should diarise it on the day escrow closes on the replacement.
Forty years of improvement receipts were thrown out with the rest
Room additions, a new roof and HVAC systems add to basis. Painting inside or out, fixing leaks and filling holes or cracks never do. Improvements that were later removed or replaced have to have their remaining basis backed out, which is a detail that surprises people who kept everything.
On a house where the gain runs into seven figures, a documented 300,000 dollars of capital improvements is worth real tax. The receipts are almost never kept and they are always thrown out during the clearing, which is precisely why the contents step and the basis step have to be run in that order.
The pier failed its inspection two weeks before the closing date
Any waterfront sale with a dock runs a second permit file alongside the escrow. The city inspects, issues a deficiency letter where the pier fails, and reinspects after the correction is made. Then the transfer application has to be signed by the seller, the buyer and any joint permittee, with signatures due at close of escrow.
Application turnaround is five to fifteen working days and a transfer fee applies. A deficiency letter arriving in the last fortnight of a sixty day escrow has no room to absorb a correction and a reinspection, and the person under pressure to move twice is the one least able to take the delay.
The 55 and over community verified ages and the household did not fit
Federal law sets the structure. Under 24 CFR 100.305 a housing for older persons community relying on the 55 and over exemption must have at least 80 percent of its occupied units occupied by at least one person aged 55 or older, and under 24 CFR 100.307 it must verify occupant ages at least once every two years through reliable documentation.
That 80 percent is a community level test, not a promise about any individual unit, and the rules a specific association applies to a younger spouse, an adult child or a live in carer are in its own governing documents. Read them before writing an offer, not after.
The two year window was spent emptying the house
The Proposition 19 deadline is measured from the sale of the original to the purchase or completion of the replacement, and two years sounds like a long time until a family starts on a garage, an attic and a lifetime of paper.
The honest difficulty on this page is here. Clearing a long held house is slow, physically hard and emotionally expensive, and it is the step everyone underestimates. Booking the packing help before the listing appointment, rather than after the offer, is the single change that keeps the rest of the schedule intact.
Sell the Newport Beach House First, or Buy the Next One First
Both routes qualify under Proposition 19, because the two year window runs in both directions. They price differently, they finance differently, and they fail differently.
Sell first, then buy
This is the route the statute rewards. Selling the Newport Beach house first and buying the replacement within the first year gives an adjusted full cash value of the original at 105 percent, and a purchase in the second year gives 110 percent. Where the replacement costs more than the original, that cushion is the difference between adding to the transferred value and not.
The formula matters more than the label. If the replacement's full cash value is equal to or less than the adjusted full cash value of the original, the factored base year value transfers intact. If it is greater, the new taxable value is the factored base year value of the original plus the difference between the two. The Board of Equalization's own worked example: an original with a full cash value of 400,000 dollars and a factored base year value of 100,000 dollars, sold, with a replacement bought in the first year after for 600,000 dollars. The adjusted figure is 400,000 multiplied by 105 percent, or 420,000 dollars. The excess is 180,000 dollars. The replacement is assessed at 280,000 dollars rather than 600,000.
Financially it is also the cleaner route. The proceeds are in hand, there is no bridge financing, no second mortgage payment and no carrying two properties. For an owner on a fixed income that is not a small point, and for a Medi-Cal beneficiary the sequencing question is different again and belongs with an elder law attorney before anything is listed.
The honest downside is that you have to live somewhere. Selling first in a market where the replacement has not been identified means a rental, a family spare room, or an offer written under time pressure with a two year clock already running. Two moves rather than one is real work at any age, and it is harder at 78 than at 58.
Buy first, then sell
This qualifies. The Board of Equalization is explicit that as long as one transaction occurs on or after 1 April 2021 and the original is sold within two years of the purchase of the replacement, the base year value transfers. Nobody has to sell into homelessness to keep the benefit.
It costs two things. The value factor drops to 100 percent, so on a 1,000,000 dollar original the difference between a 100 percent and a 105 percent factor is 50,000 dollars of assessed value carried for as long as the house is owned, roughly 500 to 600 dollars a year at a typical Orange County rate. And the replacement is taxed at its full fair market value from the date of purchase until the date the original sells, with no refund for that period.
The worked example is worth having in front of you. An original with a full cash value of 1,200,000 dollars and a factored base year value of 180,000 dollars, with a replacement bought before the sale for 1,400,000 dollars. The factor is 100 percent, so the adjusted full cash value of the original stays at 1,200,000 dollars. The excess is 200,000 dollars, and the new taxable value is 380,000 dollars rather than 1,400,000.
The honest downside is financing and nerve. Buying first usually means qualifying while still carrying the Newport Beach property, and the original must actually sell, and be reassessed to market, for the transfer to happen at all. Vacating it is not enough. If the sale slips past two years from the purchase, the relief is gone, not merely reduced.
The Numbers Here Are Larger Than the Commission. Somebody Should Be Reading the Statute.
Paula Aragone has worked Orange County transactions for 23 years, across 900+ transactions and $900M+ sold, and she came to it after four years of law school. She holds the CPRES and SRES designations. On a downsizing file the SRES designation, Seniors Real Estate Specialist, is the relevant one: it is the National Association of Realtors credential for agents working with clients aged 50 and over, and it exists because this transaction is not the same as any other listing.
The reason it is not the same is arithmetic. On a Newport Beach house held since the 1970s, the difference between filing BOE-19-B on time and filing it in year four, or between a 100 percent factor and a 105 percent factor, or between a documented improvement history and a shoebox that went in a skip, is worth considerably more than anything else in the transaction. Those decisions are made months before a listing agreement is signed, which is the point at which most agents are not yet in the conversation.
The second reason is that the reader of this page is very often not the owner. Adult children arrive with a spreadsheet and a deadline, and the owner arrives with forty years of context that the spreadsheet does not hold. Both are right about different things. The work is to put the actual constraints on the table, the two year window, the section 121 number, the physical reality of clearing the house, and let the family decide, rather than deciding for them and calling it advice.
Nothing on this page is tax or legal advice. The Proposition 19 figures should be confirmed with the Orange County Assessor, the section 121 position with a CPA, and anything touching Medi-Cal eligibility with a California elder law attorney, because eligibility, transfer penalties, the look back period and share of cost are legal work and not an agent's to give.
Downsizing in Newport Beach, Answered
The questions owners over 55 ask, and the ones their children ask, answered for California law and for this city specifically.
Can I really take my old property tax bill with me?
You can take the base year value, which is what the bill is calculated from. Proposition 19, effective 1 April 2021 and implemented by Revenue and Taxation Code 69.6, lets a claimant who is at least 55 at the time of sale transfer the factored base year value of the original primary residence to a replacement primary residence, up to three times. The replacement must be bought or newly built within two years of the sale, and both properties have to be primary residences eligible for the homeowners' exemption or the disabled veterans' exemption.
We used Proposition 60 years ago. Is that the end of it?
No, and this is the change most people have not heard about. Under Propositions 60 and 90, codified at Revenue and Taxation Code 69.5, the benefit was one time only. Proposition 19 replaced that with up to three transfers for a claimant over 55 or severely and permanently disabled. It also removed the county problem: Proposition 60 worked only within the same county and Proposition 90 only into a county that had adopted an authorising ordinance, of which there were ten as of November 2018. Proposition 19 works anywhere in California.
What happens if the replacement house costs more than the Newport Beach house?
Nothing disqualifying. That is the second big change. Under the old law, exceeding the equal or lesser value threshold killed the claim outright. Under Proposition 19 the excess is simply added. The adjusted full cash value of the original is computed at 100, 105 or 110 percent depending on timing, and if the replacement's full cash value is higher, the new taxable value is the factored base year value of the original plus the difference. Anyone telling you Proposition 19 abolished the equal or lesser value test is giving you the wrong number.
How much capital gains tax will we owe on a house we bought in the 1970s?
More than most people expect. The section 121 exclusion is 250,000 dollars single and 500,000 dollars joint and has not been indexed since 1997. You need ownership and use of the home as your principal residence for periods totalling 24 months within the five years before the sale, and no other section 121 exclusion in the prior two years. Everything above the exclusion is taxable federally, taxable in California at ordinary rates because California has no preferential capital gains rate, and potentially subject to the 3.8 percent Net Investment Income Tax. Have a CPA run the actual number before you choose a listing date.
My husband died last year. Does that change what we can exclude?
It changes two things, and both have clocks. Under IRC 121(b)(4) a surviving spouse may use the full 500,000 dollar exclusion if the sale occurs no later than two years after the date of death, the requirements were met immediately before the death, and the survivor has not remarried by the date of sale. Separately, under IRC 1014(b)(6), if the Newport Beach house was community property, both halves took a new basis at the date of death value, which in California often removes the gain problem entirely. The date of death appraisal is the document that protects that.
We are selling the house with the dock. Does the dock change the Proposition 19 calculation?
The calculation uses the full cash value of what sells, so anything that forms part of the transaction is part of that figure. What the dock really changes is the timeline. The city inspects the pier, issues a deficiency letter if it fails, reinspects after correction, and requires a transfer application signed by seller, buyer and any joint permittee with signatures due at close of escrow, with a turnaround of five to fifteen working days and a fee. Open it at listing and it never touches the closing date.
The Newport Beach house has been rented out in summer for years. Does that hurt us?
It can, in two specific ways. Under IRC 121(d)(6) the exclusion does not cover gain up to the amount of depreciation adjustments attributable to periods after 6 May 1997, which is relevant wherever the property carried rental depreciation or a home office deduction. Under IRC 121(b)(5), gain allocated to periods of nonqualified use, generally post 2008 periods when it was not your principal residence, is not excludable. The 24 months of use still have to be there. This is a CPA question, and the rental records matter.
Beacon Bay is a ground lease. Does any of this work there?
That is exactly the right question to ask before doing anything else. Beacon Bay has historically been a ground lease community, and it is a title question that a buyer's counsel raises on every transaction there. What you own, and therefore what is sold, reassessed and valued, has to be established from the title record and the lease documents first. Confirm the assessment position with the Orange County Assessor before assuming that a base year value transfer behaves the way it would on fee land.
Forty years of work on a Balboa Island cottage and we cannot find the permits. Where do we start?
With the Residential Building Records report. It became voluntary on 28 November 2023 but it remains the instrument that settles this, because it pairs the city's permit history with a zoning check and, if the owner authorises it, a Code Enforcement inspection covering permit and zoning compliance and life safety items such as smoke detectors, water heater strapping and pool enclosure. Corrections noted have to be made within 30 days of inspection, although a buyer may take them on with disclosure. Order it at listing.
We want to stay in Newport Beach but move somewhere smaller. Does Proposition 19 help with the Newport Coast assessments?
No, and the distinction is worth being clear about. A base year value transfer moves the assessed value that the one percent general levy is calculated from. It does nothing to a Mello Roos special tax levied by a Community Facilities District, and nothing to association dues. Newport Coast is where Community Facilities District exposure sits in this city, under layered master and sub associations. Where a special tax applies, Civil Code 1102.6b requires the seller to obtain the notice from the levying agency, because the tax bill line item is not the notice.
We are moving because of the stairs. Is a single level home realistic here?
It exists but it is not the default, and the geography explains why. Balboa Island lots are the classic thirty by eighty five, which is why the peninsula and island stock builds upward rather than outward. The single level product is concentrated in the older inland and bluff tracts rather than on the water. This is one of the more common reasons a move gets made, and it is worth being explicit about it early, because it narrows the replacement search far more than any budget does.
Is there any way to stop paying property tax now, before we sell?
There is a postponement programme, not an exemption. The State Controller's Property Tax Postponement programme requires the claimant to be at least 62, or blind, or disabled, to own and occupy the home as a principal residence, to have at least 40 percent equity, to have no reverse mortgage, and to have total household income at or below 55,181 dollars as defined in Revenue and Taxation Code 20503. Interest runs at 5 percent a year, a lien is recorded, and only current year taxes are eligible. Applications run 1 October to 10 February. Confirm the current income figure with the State Controller's Office.
What is the homeowners' exemption and does it matter here?
It is a 7,000 dollar reduction in taxable value, worth roughly 70 dollars a year at the base one percent rate, claimed on form BOE-266 with the county assessor. Filing is one time and it applies annually afterwards, with a 15 February deadline for the full exemption in a given year. It matters far beyond its own value, because eligibility for the homeowners' exemption, or the disabled veterans' exemption, is a precondition for the Proposition 19 base year value transfer on both properties.
My mother is on Medi-Cal. Can she sell the house?
She can, but the sequencing has to be planned and it is not an agent's decision. An occupied home is exempt as an asset. Cash is not. From 1 January 2026 the reinstated asset limits are 130,000 dollars for one person and 195,000 dollars for two, applied at the first renewal in 2026. Proceeds from the sale of an exempt home are exempt for six months from receipt if they are applied to another principal residence, moving costs, furnishings or repairs. A sale with no replacement identified is the situation that ends eligibility. Take this to a California elder law attorney first.
Should we renovate the Newport Beach house before selling it?
Usually much less than people assume. Ordinary repairs and maintenance never add to basis, so a pre sale refresh does not reduce the tax bill, and on older island and peninsula stock the buyer pool is often planning its own work regardless. What does earn its cost is anything that removes uncertainty: a settled permit history, a working pier, a clean disclosure file and access for inspection. Fix what is broken and disclose what is not, rather than remodelling to a taste the buyer may not share.
Do we have to sell before we can buy, to make the numbers work?
No. The two year window runs in both directions, and buying first is expressly allowed provided the original sells within two years of the purchase. What buying first costs is the 105 or 110 percent factor, which drops to 100 percent, and an unrefunded period of tax at the replacement's full market value between the purchase and the sale. On a 1,000,000 dollar original, that factor difference alone is 50,000 dollars of assessed value carried permanently, roughly 500 to 600 dollars a year at a typical Orange County rate.
Related Pages
Other specialties in Newport Beach
Senior downsizing nearby
Have the Tax Conversation Before the Listing Conversation
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If you are 55 or over and thinking about leaving a Newport Beach house you have owned for decades, the first meeting is about sequence, deadlines and numbers, not about staging. Call or text, and bring your children if they are the ones asking the questions.
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Paula Aragone, California DRE 01364746. Aragone & Associates is a team at First Team Real Estate, California DRE 01008773. Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. This page is general information about California real estate practice and is not legal, tax or financial advice.
Aragone & Associates Real Estate Group, 4 Corporate Plaza Dr #100, Newport Beach, CA 92660. Paula Aragone, California DRE 01364746. Brokerage: First Team Real Estate, California DRE 01008773. Equal Housing Opportunity. Nothing on this page is legal, tax or financial advice, and no attorney client relationship is created by contacting this office. Consult your attorney, your accountant and your county assessor before acting on any statement here. Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed and is subject to change without notice.