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.
Start here
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.