Anyone live in Bakersfield, Ca or familiar with the area?

[Kristyn Sanchez]

I would like to start investing in Bakersfield since I live here. Looking for advice and opinions on the current market here and also would be nice to meet new people.

[Richard Phipps]

I am new to investing myself. I work in a government office where I see investors make mistakes everyday. Now this may be obvious to the experienced investors but someone new might not know this but one mistake is accepting the tax rate that the realtors give you. Taxes are calculated based on net assessed value times a series of tax rates plus the special assessments in the area and these can vary conceivably from one parcel to the parcel right next door. The percentages of the tax rates that the taxing agencies use are voted on by the supervisors usually in September or early October. The special assessments are created by the voters with propositions and measures.

If you go to the Kern County Treasurer/Tax Collector's website: https://kcttc.co.kern.ca.us, click on the blue box to your left that has credit card icons and the phrase, "Pay Your Taxes Online." This will take you to a security page, where you'll type in a code that you'll see on the screen and hit, "Enter." This will take you to a search page where you can type in an Assessor's Tax Number (ATN) or below that, an address. If you type in the ATN, it will take you directly to the bill. If you type in the address, only key in the street number and the street name, then click search. This will take you to a list of properties, where the property your looking for is more than likely at the top of the list. You would then click the link to the left for your property to get to the bill.

When you are at the bill, click on the link (i.e. the tax bill number) to get to a page that will show you the tax bill again but it will also show the net assessed value and most importantly, a "Bill Details" button. The "Bill Details" page will show you all the taxing agencies taxing this property, their phone numbers, the tax rates, and the tax amounts for each agency. In addition, at the bottom the page, it will show the sum of the tax rates, which is not the true tax rate yet but only a subtotal.

Underneath all of the rates that show a percentage there will usually be other entries with no percentages. These are the special assessments. The tax rate for your particular property will be again the net assessed value, times a series of tax rates, plus the special assessments and each of these can and do change from year to year. In the bottom right hand corner is the total yearly bill, which is then split into two installments.