REAL ESTATE

O.C. Land Valuations: How much are we worth?

The State Board of Equalization says the Orange County assessor’s office valued all the real property in the county at $173.55 billion for the 1992-93 tax year. In addition, the state, which assesses certain types of property including that owned by public utilities and railroads, came up with a $5.06-billion value in Orange County, for a total of $178.61 billion.

And despite all the news about falling property values in the past year, that assessment is up 4.9% from the 1991-92 tax year.

The reason: increased value of older homes and business properties under the 2% annual hike allowed by law, plus the value of what little new construction there has been in the past year and the value of remodeling work, which accounted for 20% of the $899 million in residential construction permits issued in the county during the first 10 months of the year.