Auto Dealerships - Get a $20,000 Refund of Property Taxes

SAN DIEGO - March 16, 2015 - PRLog -- San Diego, California - Automobile dealerships in San Diego are overtaxed and property owners can collectively save a million dollars in property taxes for the 2015 tax year by successfully appealing their property’s assessments.  The dealerships that are in this study are new car dealers located in San Diego County with at least 10,000 square feet (SF) of building space.  There are more than 100 dealerships included in this study and it represents all of the new car dealerships in San Diego.  Dealerships that sold boats, RVs, or only used cars were excluded.  Each dealership’s market value was determined by comparing it to sales of similar dealerships.

Sales of new car dealerships in San Diego County since 2012 have ranged from $71 to $288 per building square foot.  There have been less than 20 transactions of new car dealerships - the average sale price is $172 per building SF and the median price is $178 per building SF.


         Assessed value   Market value        Difference
Total          $724.38 million    $765.38 million    -$41 million
Subset – overtaxed         $377.12 million    $286.94 million    $90.18 million
Subset per dealership     $8.38 million        $6.38 million        $2 million
Subset per building SF    $246.63          $187.65          $58.98

The good news is that new car dealerships in San Diego, as a whole, are being assessed for less than their market value.  This is because of Proposition 13 – which restricted increases of assessed value to 2% per year.  This legislation is helping new car dealership owners save more than $450,000 per year on property taxes; which are about 1.1% of the assessment.

However, more than 40% of new car dealerships in San Diego are overtaxed because their assessed value exceeds market value.  Of this subset of overtaxed new car dealerships, the total savings are more than $1,000,000 and the average dealership can save $20,000 on their 2015 property taxes by appealing the assessment.

About CRE Tax Appeal: we represent 10% of auto dealerships in Southern California.  We annually evaluate every auto dealership in Southern California to help auto dealerships make better real estate decisions and to reduce their property taxes to a fair market value.  Our website is www.CREtaxappeal.com.

For more information, please contact Joseph Reinagel, founder and CEO of CRE Tax Appeal.