Allow me to suggest this, however; if you're house hunting, one of the best people to consult is the county tax assessor. He/she will often have advance knowledge of possible/probable future changes you'd want to know about. I checked on one area before retiring and learned to my dismay that there would be a county-wide reassessment the following year, and an increase of 15-20% would be likely. Talk to planning and zoning, too. You'll learn a lot. If it's a place where the police blotter is public, read that back a year or so - the house you like could be next to a troublemaker. Check the sex offender registry by all means! HOA regs can be onerous, but they do serve a legitimate purpose by and large; do you really want a disruptive 'home' business to open on your block and adversely impact the neighbors? Planning and zoning won't always step up the way they should.
Although it's probably changed by now, there used to be places in the NorthEast where no homeowner would put front steps on the house, because that made the dwelling legally 'complete' and therefore subject to higher taxes. People might live in an 'incomplete' house 40 years! Last but not least, find out how a change of ownership affects taxes. Under CA's Prop 13, the taxes were kept lower unless the property changed hands. Then back to sky high. Can't say I agreed with 13 because it did have a severe impact on funds the state needed to function. But you deal with things as you find them.
The funniest thing that went on in SoCal years ago was the rural barn situation. Barns of course were assessed far under official houses. So what people would do, open and legal, was to build a barn with the intent of later alteration. If they didn't have livestock to put in the barn, they'd borrow or rent a cow and install it before the inspector arrived. When he declared the building to be a legal barn and went his merry way, the owners would dispose of the livestock and then renovate that barn into a very comfortable if unconventional home. Problem solved.
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