This is an estimate for planning, from Zillow's ZIP-wide typical values applied to your purchase price. It is not an appraisal, a broker price opinion, an offer, a loan offer, or tax or legal advice, and Rudy is a real estate agent, not a lender, appraiser or tax professional.
How the estimate works
- The page reads Zillow's typical value for the home type in the ZIP code at the purchase date and at the latest date available.
- It applies that change to the original price and builds a condition-based range around it.
- With the original loan, the balance follows standard fixed-rate payments beginning the month after closing.
- Equity is the mid value minus the balance; the net also takes out selling costs, before any tax.
- For the Prop 13 line, the purchase price is raised by each year's official inflation factor, which by law cannot pass 2%.
Your Prop 13 value and Prop 19
When a divorce home is sold, the buyer's taxable value resets to the new price, and the sellers' Prop 13 base, which grew 2% a year at most, does not follow them to their next homes on its own.
A seller who is 55 or older may be able to transfer that base under Proposition 19, provided the next home is in California and is purchased no later than two years after the sale; it can be used three times. Ask the county assessor and a tax professional.
Before a sale, two useful pages: the downsizing calculator and property tax when a divorce home is sold.
Sources and dates
- Zillow Research, Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI) by ZIP code: all homes, single-family and condo; middle tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted (data through September 2026, files updated Oct 16, 2026)
- FHFA House Price Index for five-digit ZIP codes (annual, developmental index, not seasonally adjusted; 2000 = 100), used only for purchases before Zillow's series begin. Citation: Bogin, Doerner and Larson, Local House Price Dynamics: New Indices and Stylized Facts, FHFA Working Paper 16-01 (annual, through 2025)
- Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS): weekly 30-year and 15-year fixed averages; the page uses the mean for your purchase month (monthly means through October 2026; latest weekly 30-year average 7.24% on Oct 29, 2026)
- California State Board of Equalization, Letter To Assessors No. 2026/002: inflation factors for 1976-77 through 2026-27, with Revenue and Taxation Code section 51 and California Constitution article XIII A, section 2(b) (January 13, 2026)
- California State Board of Equalization, Proposition 19 (checked Oct 30, 2026)
- Assumptions, not sourced figures: the condition range (the same rule of thumb as the home value range tool), 6% selling costs, 20% down, regular payments on a fixed-rate loan starting the month after you bought, and the first inflation factor applying on the first January 1 after your purchase
Questions owners ask
Is this an appraisal we can rely on?
No. It is a planning estimate from a ZIP-wide index. For the settlement or the court, your attorney will arrange a formal appraisal. This number is for understanding the starting range.
Why could a sale come in outside the range?
Condition, layout and lot matter a lot, and a ZIP index sees none of them. A free review of recent comparable sales from Rudy shows where this home likely falls.
There is a second loan on the house. How do I include it?
Use the second loan option and enter the total owed today on every loan against the home. The estimate then uses that balance.
What does the property tax line mean for each of us?
It estimates the Prop 13 taxable value, the purchase price plus up to 2% a year. A buyer's tax resets to the sale price, and your own next home is taxed from its purchase price unless an exclusion applies.
More from Rudy
