The New York Times reports today that some local governments are bracing for lower property assessments and (therefore) lower property tax collections.

In San Bernardino County near Los Angeles, tens of thousands of owners of the 860,000 homes will have their assessments lowered in the coming year, said Bill Postmus, the assessor, rivaling the numbers during the California real estate crash of the 1990s.

“You should see more of this activity,” said Chris Hoene, director of policy and research at the National League of Cities. “It is mostly in areas most likely to be seeing some decline, like Southern California, Florida, and big cities in the Midwest,” rapid growth areas that are now seeing the other side of the curve.

The Times notes that in states that cap property tax increases -- Maryland is an example -- "the market value of single family homes almost always exceeds the assessed tax values, except in a major downturn."

However, even in California, if a home buyer made his purchase during a market top in the last several years, he might be in the position of qualifying for lower assessed values. For instance, in Santa Clara County, where pricey Palo Alto and San Jose are located, 17,758 properties were reassessed downward for the 2007-2008 tax period, compared with the same period from 2000 to 2001, when the number was closer to 300.

Maryland reassesses individual properties every three years rather than annually. We'll hear about the average change in values later this week.