All citiesSan FranciscoClevelandNew York CityWashington, D.C.CincinnatiLos AngelesOaklandSan Diego
Seattle and Austin coming October 1st.

Oakland · guides

For buyers, owners and anyone reading a tax bill

What seven roll years show that one does not

Alameda County publishes its secured roll one fiscal year at a time, back to 2019-20. Read together they are the staircase Proposition 13 builds, and the step where the building sold.

What the rate on it is, and what it is not

The roll says what a parcel is assessed at; it does not say what the tax is. Alameda County publishes that separately, as a rate per tax rate area: the 1% Proposition 13 base and every voter-approved bond that applies to that area, each as its own line. 1111 Broadway sits in area 17-022, where seven lines sum to 1.2779%.

On its 2025-26 assessment of $338,101,503 that rate produces about $4.3m a year. On a house assessed at $316,797 in the same area, about $3,959. The report shows the lines as well as the total, because a bond that ends is a line that disappears.

This is the ad valorem rate and not the whole bill. A California bill also carries direct charges — parcel taxes, lighting and landscape assessments, sewer, refuse — levied per parcel rather than as a percentage, and the county does not publish those here. The homeowners’ exemption, which takes $7,000 off the assessed value first, is on the roll and is read.

What the number is

Under Proposition 13 a parcel's assessed value is set at its price the last time it changed hands and then rises by at most about two per cent a year. It is not what the building is worth; it is a staircase from the last sale.

Why seven years and not one

Alameda County publishes its secured roll one fiscal year at a time, back to 2019-20. A single year is a number you cannot check. Seven read together are a shape: flat two per cent steps, and then a jump where the deed recorded. The report reads all seven and shows them side by side.

A worked example

1111 Broadway, a downtown office building. Net assessed value of $221m in the 2019-20 roll, $226m in 2020-21, $228m in 2021-22 — and then $319m in 2022-23. The building sold on 16 August 2021, and the county reset the base to what was paid. Two per cent a year since: $325m, $331m, $338m.

Why a seller's bill says nothing about a buyer's

A building held twenty years carries a tax bill from a twenty-year-old price. The day you buy it the county resets the base to what you paid, and the bill is yours from there. The number on the seller's statement is evidence about the seller's tenure, not about your cost.

The homeowners' exemption — $7,000 off the assessed value — appears on the roll only where the owner claimed it. The report reports the amount, never the owner.

Counts run 5 September 2026.

More Oakland guides