What Prop 19 Really Means for Monterey County Homeowners Who Want to Move

If you’ve lived in Monterey County long enough, you've probably developed a kind of quiet, private fear about property taxes. You don’t talk about it at dinner parties, but you feel it every time you walk past a “For Sale” sign in your neighborhood. You imagine what it would be like to sell your home, to start over in a place that fits the way you live now rather than the way you lived 20 or 30 years ago. You imagine the light, the space, the views, the stairs you no longer want to climb, the garden you wish you had, or the yard you no longer want to maintain.

Then you imagine the tax bill.

That is usually where the daydream ends.

The irony is that in one of the most naturally beautiful places in California, homeowners often feel trapped inside homes they’ve simply outgrown. Not because they can’t find somewhere new to go, but because they believe moving would mean losing the one piece of financial protection they’ve relied on all these years: their low tax basis.

And on the surface, that fear isn’t irrational. If you bought your home in 1984 for $175,000 and it’s now worth $1.4M, you know exactly how fast your taxes would multiply if the county reassessed you at the new value.

But Prop 19 changed that math. The problem is that almost no one actually understands how it works.

So let’s fix that.

What follows is an unpacking of Prop 19, written for people who want to move but are scared to pay significantly more in taxes. This is not legal advice. This is not a sales pitch. This is simply the explanation we wish every homeowner in Monterey County had access to. Because once you understand it, the fear that’s been keeping you stuck starts to lose its grip.

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Why Prop 19 Exists (And Why It Matters in a Place Like Monterey County)

Prop 19 was designed to help Californians in very specific situations. In particular, people who are:

• Over 55

• Living with a severe disability

• Or rebuilding after a wildfire or natural disaster

Most Monterey County homeowners thinking about a move fall into the first category: over 55, ready for a change, but financially cautious.

California understood something simple: people’s needs change as they age, but the tax system wasn’t built for mobility. It punished people for wanting their homes to match their lives. Prop 19 is the state’s attempt to address that.

Here is the foundational idea:

If you are 55 or older, you can transfer your old property tax basis to a new home anywhere in California.

And you can do it up to three times.

This is the part most people have heard, vaguely. But the details are where the clarity — and the real opportunity — live.

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The Core Concept, Explained in One Sentence

Prop 19 allows you to keep your current low property tax assessment and apply it to your next home, with an adjustment depending on whether the new home costs more, less, or the same as the one you’re selling.

If you understand that one sentence, everything else becomes intuitive.

But let’s break it down.

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How Prop 19 Works in Plain English

There are only three scenarios that matter.

Scenario 1: You Buy a New Home for the Same Price or Less

If your replacement home costs the same or less than the home you sold, your tax bill stays based on your old home’s assessed value.

Not the sale price.
Not the market value today.
The assessed value that has been protected all these years.

For many homeowners, this alone is life-changing. You can downsize, move closer to town, move to the sun, move to the pines, move to wherever you would actually like to live, and you can do it without losing the tax protection that made staying in Monterey County possible in the first place.

Simple. Clean. Extremely powerful.

Scenario 2: You Buy a New Home for More Than You Sold For

This is where most people’s fear kicks in. But the truth is far more reasonable than the assumptions.

Let’s use real numbers.

Suppose:

• Your current home’s assessed value is $420,000.

• You sell your home for $1,200,000.

• You buy a replacement home for $1,500,000.

Here’s what Prop 19 does:

1. It takes your old assessed value ($420,000).

2. It adds the difference between the sale price and the purchase price (in this case, the difference is $300,000).

3. Your new assessed value becomes $420,000 + $300,000 = $720,000.

That’s it.

Not $1.5M.
Not anything close to what the county would assess you at otherwise.
Just $720,000.

Which means your property taxes would be roughly:
$720,000 × 1.1 percent = about $7,900 per year.

Without Prop 19, your taxes on a $1.5M purchase would be closer to:
$1.5M × 1.1 percent = about $16,500 per year.

The difference?
Around $8,600 annually.

For many families, that is the exact gap between “we can’t afford to move” and “we can breathe again.”

Scenario 3: You Buy for Less Than You Sell

This is the scenario almost no one realizes is available to them.

Let’s say:

• Your current assessed value is $315,000.

• You sell for $1,100,000.

• You buy your next home for $850,000.

Your new assessed value is still $315,000.

It doesn’t matter that you bought the new home for $850k.
It doesn’t matter that you sold for more.
It doesn’t matter that your equity position shifted.

The law preserves your tax basis as long as the replacement home costs the same or less than the one you sold.

This is why Prop 19 is, at its core, built for mobility.

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Why Monterey County Homeowners Underestimate Their Options

On the Peninsula, the emotional reality of the market is often shaped by the homes people bought 20, 30, or even 40 years ago. Back then, you bought your home for $180k or $260k or $310k — and it felt like a stretch.

Today, that same home is worth $1.1M or $1.3M or more. Which means your tax basis is tiny compared to market value.

That difference is where your fear comes from.

But it's also where your freedom lives.

When you run real numbers against real options in our actual local neighborhoods — Pacific Grove, Carmel, Carmel Valley, Monterey, Pebble Beach — something predictable happens:

People who think they’re stuck realize they aren’t.

They find out they can move from a small home on a busy street to a quieter neighborhood.
They find out they can move from a layout that never quite worked to one that fits their life now.
They find out they can move closer to their grandchildren, or closer to the hospital, or farther into the sun.
They find out they can move to a home that feels like a relief rather than a compromise.

Most importantly, they discover that their property tax bill doesn’t have to double or triple in the process.

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Examples Based on Real Monterey County Pricing

These are hypothetical, but drawn from common situations we've seen with our clients.

Example A: Pacific Grove to New Monterey

• PG bungalow: assessed at $365k, sells for $1.25M.

• New Monterey home: purchased for $1.4M.

Difference between sell and buy: $150k.

New assessed value:
$365k + $150k = $515k.

Approx. annual tax:
$5,660.

Without Prop 19?
Around $15,400.

Example B: Carmel Valley to Carmel Highlands

• CV ranch-style home: assessed at $420k, sells for $1.8M.

• Carmel Highlands home: purchased for $2.1M.

Difference: $300k.

New assessed value:
$420k + $300k = $720k.

Approx. annual tax:
$7,900.

Without Prop 19?
$23,100.

Example C: Downsizing in Pebble Beach

• Original Pebble Beach home: assessed at $580k, sells for $2.6M.

• New downsized Pebble Beach home: purchased for $1.85M.

Because the new home costs less than the sale price:
New assessed value stays $580k.

Approx. annual tax:
$6,380.

Without Prop 19?
$20,350.

These examples aren’t rare exceptions. They’re normal. They happen quietly every month across the Peninsula.

And most people have no idea.

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The Psychological Weight of a Low Tax Basis

If you’ve owned your home a long time, your low tax basis becomes something more than a number. It becomes a form of security. It feels like the one thing the rising cost of California hasn’t taken from you.

You don’t want to lose it.
You don’t want to start over.
You don’t want to feel like you’re stepping into a financial system that’s suddenly stacked against you again.

The mistake isn’t the feeling. The mistake is assuming you have to choose between keeping the tax basis or making a move.

Prop 19 is the bridge between those two fears.

It says, very simply: You can take your security with you.

And that’s all most people need in order to imagine their next chapter without panic.

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Why People Still Feel Confused (And Why That’s Normal)

Even though Prop 19 has been in effect for years, the flow of information hasn’t kept up. Most explanations are:

• Too legal

• Too vague

• Too full of outdated rules from Prop 60/90

• Too far removed from local pricing

• Too impersonal

• Too simplified to be useful

• Or reduced to a one-line “you can transfer your tax basis,” which does nothing to calm anyone’s actual fears

The truth is that the only way Prop 19 makes sense is when you connect it to real numbers, real homes, and real patterns in the Monterey Peninsula market.

This is why we talk about it so much with our clients. Not to “sell” them on moving. But to show them that they have more agency than they’ve been told.

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Why This Matters Now

We are entering a period where more longtime homeowners will want to move than any time in the past decade. People’s lives are changing. Health is changing. Work is changing. Kids are growing up. Parents need care. Grandchildren are being born. The steepness of the stairs matters more. The walk to the mailbox matters more. The size of the yard matters less.

In a place like Monterey County, homes are emotionally charged. People love where they live, but they also carry quiet frustrations: the fog, the maintenance, the traffic on their street, the distance from what they care about.

Prop 19 makes it possible to act on those feelings.
To move toward something that supports your life today.
To honor the life you lived in your current home, and then choose a home for the life you’re living now.

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So… Can You Transfer Your Tax Basis? A Short Checklist.

Here’s the distilled version:

You likely qualify if:

• You are 55 or older

• And you are buying a primary residence

• And you complete the sale and purchase within two years of each other (in either order)

• And the home you buy is in California

That’s it.

The tax basis transfer works for:

• A downsize

• An upsize

• A lateral move

• A move closer to town

• A move toward the sun

• A move to a home that feels easier, lighter, or better aligned with who you are today

What people once assumed was financially impossible has become extremely possible.

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What We Want Every Monterey County Homeowner to Know

We’ve walked through basis transfers with clients across Carmel, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Monterey, Seaside, Carmel Valley, and beyond. And the pattern is consistent:

People feel scared.
They assume the county will punish them for moving.
Then they see the real numbers.
And everything changes.

They go from:

“I can’t move without doubling my taxes.”
to
“Oh, that’s not nearly as bad as I thought.”

And then:

“I didn’t think I had choices.”
to
“It turns out I have several.”

The knowledge itself becomes a kind of liberation.

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If You’re Considering a Move, Here’s Our Honest Advice

You don’t need to commit to anything.
You don’t need to start packing boxes.
You don’t even need to know where you want to go.

But you should know your numbers.

You should know what your current home is likely to sell for.
You should know your existing assessed value.
You should know how Prop 19 would calculate your new basis.
And you should know what neighborhoods or property types fit the lifestyle you want next.

This is where we come in — not as salespeople, but as locals who understand the market deeply and know how Prop 19 actually plays out in practice.

The Ruiz Group has helped families navigate this exact decision for years. It’s some of our most meaningful work, because it often leads to people feeling freer, lighter, and more in control.

If you’re ready to understand your options, we’re here.
Not to pressure you, but to give you the clarity you deserve.

Because once you understand the numbers, the fear starts to fade.
And once the fear fades, you can finally imagine the life you want next.