Site directory
6 county guides, 35 city guides and the blog — the whole library of what property tax, Mello-Roos, fire-zone insurance and utility territory actually cost across Placer, Sacramento, El Dorado, Yolo, Orange and Butte County.
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The address search lives on the home page. Everything else explains what it found.
By county, then by city
These costs are set locally, so the guides are organized the way the costs are: the county guide covers what applies everywhere in it, and each city guide covers what only applies there.
Mello-Roos in the newer West Roseville tracts, Roseville Electric vs PG&E (a real ~2x power-bill difference), and fire risk climbing from the valley floor into the foothills.
SMUD power at roughly half a PG&E bill, North Natomas Mello-Roos, low wildfire hazard, and the supplemental bill that catches new buyers a year after closing.
The tax rate barely moves across this county — except in El Dorado Hills, where community facilities districts carry almost all the variance. Everywhere else the real cost is wildfire insurance, a well and septic system, propane, and in the Tahoe basin a utility set unlike anywhere else in the region.
Irvine Great Park Mello-Roos (the heaviest in the county), coastal fire-zone insurance and FAIR Plan realities, SCE rates, and the Newport land-lease pockets.
The county that breaks the pattern: Mello-Roos is rare and the tax rate is low, but wildfire insurance decides deals — and Oroville adds a separate FEMA flood exposure most buyers never price in.
The flat-charge county: Davis school parcel taxes, Spring Lake’s three stacked districts in Woodland, a citywide levee assessment on every West Sacramento parcel, Cache Creek flood insurance, and no cheap municipal utility anywhere.
Latest writing
Your first October tax bill: what arrives, what does not, and the exemption most new owners never file
The annual secured tax bill lands in October. If you bought in the last year, it may go to the wrong person, show the wrong value, and leave out an exemption you have to ask for. Here is how to read it.
Electricity was the easy one: the three other utility bills that come with the address
Water, sewer and garbage are set by parcel, not by city name — and some of them do not arrive as bills at all. Here is how to find out what an address actually costs before you own it.
Your assessed value is not an appraisal — and in Placer County the clock runs out September 15
The county is not appraising your house the way a lender does. It is enrolling the lesser of two numbers, once a year, as of January 1 — and the window to argue about it closes on a different date depending on which county you live in.
You can assume the loan. You cannot assume the bill.
An assumed loan keeps the seller’s rate, balance and remaining term. Almost everything else about the cost of that house is recalculated around the new owner, and the first escrow analysis is where people find out.
The base price of a new home is a starting line, not a total
A brand-new house is the one purchase where the buyer has the most information and the least. The brochure is exhaustive about the kitchen and silent about the five costs that follow the address for decades.
The HOA number in the listing is not what the HOA costs
The listing shows one monthly figure. The association also charges at close, can raise dues without asking you, and can assess for something the reserves cannot cover. Here is the whole shape of it.
Here to educate first: why HiddenHomeCost exists
The listing gives you a price. The lender gives you a payment. Nobody hands you the whole number. That gap is the reason this site exists — and why we would rather tell you something you do not want to hear than let you find it out in month four.
Insurance volatility, statewide: why a California quote is a snapshot and not a fixture
Property tax moves about 2 percent a year. Insurance moved 29 percent at the FAIR Plan, 34 percent at Allstate, and added a surcharge to policies hundreds of miles from the fire that caused it — all inside eighteen months. How to buy a house against a cost that will not hold still.
Same county, different power company: what crossing into Roseville does to the bill
Two houses a mile apart, same schools, same weather. One is on Roseville Electric and one is on PG&E, and the gap between them is larger than most things buyers negotiate over.
The number that is not in the listing: what it costs to insure
Every buyer compares price per square foot. Almost nobody compares the insurance quote — and in California that is now the number most likely to separate two houses that look identical on the listing.
A Flat Market Saves You Once. Knowing the Real Cost Saves You Every Month.
Price growth has slowed below inflation and buyers finally have leverage. Here is why the negotiation on price is the smaller of the two savings available to you right now.
The property tax bill nobody warned you about
If you bought this spring, a one-time supplemental property tax bill is probably on its way — and your lender usually won’t pay it. Here’s how to see it coming.