Property Taxes in Cannon Beach: How Measure 50 Actually Works

Oregon Doesn't Tax Market Value -- It Taxes Assessed Value, Capped

Most buyers coming from other states assume property tax is simply a percentage of a home's current market value, reassessed periodically to track the market. Oregon works differently. Ballot Measure 50, approved by voters in May 1997, established a system where each property has a maximum assessed value (MAV) that can grow by no more than 3% per year, regardless of how fast the home's actual real market value (RMV) rises. The tax bill is calculated against whichever is lower -- the capped assessed value or the real market value -- which in a market like Cannon Beach, where prices have risen sharply over recent years, usually means the capped assessed value, not the current market price, drives the actual bill for a longtime owner.

Measure 50 followed and preserved the key structure of an earlier measure, Ballot Measure 47, passed by Oregon voters in November 1996. Together, these measures were a direct response to rapidly rising property values across the state in the 1990s, and Clatsop County's own assessment materials describe the system explicitly as capping growth in taxable value independent of market swings -- meaning a Cannon Beach home that has appreciated dramatically since a 2010 purchase can still owe tax on an assessed value far below its current $1 million-plus market price.

Why That Cap Resets at Sale -- The Buyer's Real Number

The 3% annual cap applies to an existing owner's ongoing assessed value; it does not mean a new buyer inherits the prior owner's low assessed value indefinitely. New construction, remodels that add square footage, and changes in property use can trigger adjustments to a property's assessed value outside the normal 3% cap, and market activity around a sale is one of the signals the county uses when setting a property's value going forward. In practical terms, this means the tax bill you inherit as a buyer is genuinely different from the bill the seller was paying -- a seller's listing sheet showing 'current annual taxes' from their own bill is not a reliable predictor of what you, as a new owner, will actually owe, because your new assessed value will typically move closer to the property's current market value than the seller's was.

This is a genuinely important, easy-to-miss distinction for a buyer moving from a state with straightforward market-value-based assessment: don't budget for property tax based on the seller's most recent tax bill. Ask the Clatsop County Assessor's Office directly what the assessed value is projected to be for the property under new ownership, or request a clear explanation of how Measure 50's mechanics will apply to your specific purchase price and timing.

Clatsop County's Rate-Setting Process

Clatsop County, which includes Cannon Beach, collects property taxes on behalf of roughly 66 separate taxing districts, per the county's own materials -- county government functions (public safety, road maintenance, elections, public health), city services, K-12 school districts, Clatsop Community College, and the local education service district all draw from the same combined bill. Each district sets its own permanent tax rate under Oregon's system, and those rates, combined with a property's assessed value under the Measure 50 cap, produce the final bill. The county mails property tax statements in mid-October each year -- Clatsop County's own communications cite an October 16 mailing target in recent years -- giving owners a clear annual reference point for when to expect the statement.

One property-data aggregator, Ownwell, estimates Cannon Beach's effective property tax rate -- meaning actual tax paid as a percentage of a property's market value, which folds in the Measure 50 assessed-value gap -- at roughly 0.52%, notably below the roughly 1.02% national median. This is a useful directional estimate for understanding that Cannon Beach's tax burden runs comparatively light relative to home price, largely because of how much of the town's high current market value sits above the Measure 50-capped assessed value for many longtime-owned properties. It is an aggregator's estimate across the market, though, not an official county-published effective rate, and it says nothing about what any one specific, recently sold parcel actually owes.

A Worked Example, Illustrative Only

To make the arithmetic concrete: at a roughly 0.52% effective rate, a property assessed and taxed against a market value around $1,100,000 (near the middle of Cannon Beach's reported 2025-2026 median home price range) would owe in the rough neighborhood of $5,700 a year in property tax, calculated as $1,100,000 x 0.0052. This is this page's own illustrative arithmetic using an aggregator's estimated effective rate, not a quote from Clatsop County and not a substitute for an actual tax bill, which depends entirely on the specific parcel's Measure 50 assessed value history -- a figure that can differ substantially between two houses of identical current market value if one changed hands recently and the other has been held by the same owner for two decades.

What This Means Alongside No State Sales Tax

Oregon's decision to run no statewide general sales tax means property tax and state income tax carry more of the state's public-revenue weight than in most states -- worth understanding as context for why Oregon's property tax and income tax structures are built the way they are, even though this page's focus stays on the property tax mechanics specific to owning here. For a buyer relocating from a high-sales-tax state, the absence of sales tax on furniture, building materials, and most goods is a real, ongoing offset against Cannon Beach's high purchase price and property tax bill, even if it doesn't eliminate either.

What a Buyer Should Actually Do

Before making an offer on any Cannon Beach property, contact the Clatsop County Assessor's Office directly and ask two specific questions: what is the property's current Measure 50 maximum assessed value, and how is that figure expected to change under new ownership given the anticipated purchase price. Don't rely on a seller's current tax bill, a real estate listing site's estimated tax figure, or this page's illustrative $5,700 example as a substitute for that direct confirmation -- Measure 50's mechanics make a stale or generalized number more likely to mislead a buyer here than in a straightforward market-value-assessment state.