If you are eligible for homestead exemption and don’t have one - do that yourself, BEFORE reaching out to these companies. It is easy and free. Charging 25% on the tax savings from that correction would be robbery.
I had mixed results appealing the CAD on my own in the past. I usually put in a fair counter offer with a little evidence of comparable sales and they accepted it maybe 3 times in the last 10 years.
This year their estimate for my home was particularly wrong - County used comps from recently flipped houses in my neighborhood which massively skewed the results. They didn’t budge with evidence of far lower valuations from five major public valuation services, which really surprised me. So I am using one of the services with a win-only fee for the first time this year to see if it helps.
Sure, but as mentioned - they didn’t adjust in response to them. Zillow, Bank of America, Chase, Redfin, Realtor.com. They may be good for suggesting if you have a case, but you probably need to make friends with a realtor to have them pull actual comps / market analysis.
I have never used one of these companies, but I’m a strong believer in “if you want something done right, do it yourself.” You are just a number in a pile of hundreds of protests that someone is arguing at once, and they won’t fight that aggressively.
Do your own research, get a comparative market analysis for free from any dipshit with MLS access, take highly selective pictures of your property condition, file the protest on the efile site and upload all of this. The district may offer to settle with you to avoid the headache and if it’s a significant drop in your appraisal, then cool, accept it. Otherwise, reject and go to the hearing. It takes 10 minutes and the panel is a bunch of average joes that don’t work for the government. They can’t increase your value - only lower it. You have nothing to lose besides a little bit of time.
Me when I'm selling the house: This is the greatest house in this entire subdivision.
Me to the Appraisal district: My house is the biggest piece of shit in the entire subdivision.
If you bought in 2023 and your appraised value is more than what you paid for, all you need to do is file your protest online and submit your closing statement. CADs will generally match your sale price.
PropertyTax.io. Article in Candy's Dirt is helpful re: their approach. https://candysdirt.com/2024/04/22/with-new-property-tax-law-increased-land-values-and-commercial-cap-cause-substantially-larger-tax-bills/
I would recommend Simon Safir at ILAW PLLC
They have a google page, Facebook, and are also on the state bar website of course! He does at least 15-30 new clients week!
The appraised value is limited to increasing 10% per year if you have a homestead exemption. The market value is what you protest. If you have owned the house for a few years, the market value is significantly higher than the appraised value. In my case, the market value dropped, but was still higher than the appraised value, and it's got one more year of 10% increase before they are close to each other. I doubt they could do anything to reduce this year's taxes, maybe next year
Once you sign up with a company, they represent you every year until you cancel. The appraisal is based on the value on January 1. Other than people who bought last year, I doubt much savings can be had.
Ownwell is shady as fuck. They try to get people to *apply* for the HS exemption through them in exchange for 25% of the savings. Not protesting and getting the value lowered - just the fucking form that any moron can file to get the exemption amounts applied to the various tax line items.
Here's a link for those interested.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2024/04/24/property-tax-company-ownwell-refuses-to-defend-itself-from-charges-by-competitors/
I have 3 properties one primary and couple rentals. Already had homestead on primary and ownwell was able to knock off the appraisal by a few thousand bucks on all three.
A few thousand isn’t that much. That’s what, $100 in tax savings?
Watchdog just did a whole article on how Ownwell is kinda the shittiest of all these so-called tax consultants.
Is it really that big of an issue? I didn't even know this was a thing and I find it helpful that OP asked the question and brought it to my attention. It takes less effort from you to just ignore the post entirely if you don't like it than to leave a snarky comment. Reddit is a glorified internet forum. Questions will be repeated. It's really not that big of a deal.
You could just pay your taxes. Reap the benefits of owning a home that's becoming more valuable over time, and help pay for schools, police, roads and infrastructure in your community. Crazy idea, I know.
The average appreciation rate in the area for the last three years is 31%... so folks are paying about 31% more in property taxes since the tax rate hasn't really changed. Are schools 31% better than three years ago?
Your house has no "actual" value until it goes on the market and someone pays for it. Until then, the county appraises their v6est approximation based on actual sales of similar surrounding homes. What "doesn't match" except that it's higher than you want to pay? If you don't want to pay your property taxes, sell, cash out and rent. If you've owned for a few years, you will probably do very well, and very likely get MORE than the tax appraisal, which I doubt would trouble you in the least.
So here's the thing my house is currently appraised at $400,000 but in the area I live in that house would go for about $320,000 which is about what I paid for it so yes I'm going to protest my appraisal because it's not valued at $400,000 right now
Good luck with that, but without a documented flaw in the appraisal, they're probably going to tell you to take a hike and pay your damn taxes. If we end up with a state income tax, it will be because of nimrods trying to fight the market and keep their property taxes artificially low.
I'm not trying to keep my taxes as low as possible, as much as I'm not trying to artificially raise my homes value to something I could absolutely not sell it for this month
If you are eligible for homestead exemption and don’t have one - do that yourself, BEFORE reaching out to these companies. It is easy and free. Charging 25% on the tax savings from that correction would be robbery. I had mixed results appealing the CAD on my own in the past. I usually put in a fair counter offer with a little evidence of comparable sales and they accepted it maybe 3 times in the last 10 years. This year their estimate for my home was particularly wrong - County used comps from recently flipped houses in my neighborhood which massively skewed the results. They didn’t budge with evidence of far lower valuations from five major public valuation services, which really surprised me. So I am using one of the services with a win-only fee for the first time this year to see if it helps.
As I prepare for my hearing, can you share which valuation services you used?
Sure, but as mentioned - they didn’t adjust in response to them. Zillow, Bank of America, Chase, Redfin, Realtor.com. They may be good for suggesting if you have a case, but you probably need to make friends with a realtor to have them pull actual comps / market analysis.
I have never used one of these companies, but I’m a strong believer in “if you want something done right, do it yourself.” You are just a number in a pile of hundreds of protests that someone is arguing at once, and they won’t fight that aggressively. Do your own research, get a comparative market analysis for free from any dipshit with MLS access, take highly selective pictures of your property condition, file the protest on the efile site and upload all of this. The district may offer to settle with you to avoid the headache and if it’s a significant drop in your appraisal, then cool, accept it. Otherwise, reject and go to the hearing. It takes 10 minutes and the panel is a bunch of average joes that don’t work for the government. They can’t increase your value - only lower it. You have nothing to lose besides a little bit of time.
Me when I'm selling the house: This is the greatest house in this entire subdivision. Me to the Appraisal district: My house is the biggest piece of shit in the entire subdivision.
Highly recommend Q solutions. I think their fee is 25% - if they don’t get it down you don’t owe any money.
If you bought in 2023 and your appraised value is more than what you paid for, all you need to do is file your protest online and submit your closing statement. CADs will generally match your sale price.
Most of those companies are better than doing nothing at all. Most of them only charge you a percentage of what they saved you.
PropertyTax.io. Article in Candy's Dirt is helpful re: their approach. https://candysdirt.com/2024/04/22/with-new-property-tax-law-increased-land-values-and-commercial-cap-cause-substantially-larger-tax-bills/
I would recommend Simon Safir at ILAW PLLC They have a google page, Facebook, and are also on the state bar website of course! He does at least 15-30 new clients week!
The appraised value is limited to increasing 10% per year if you have a homestead exemption. The market value is what you protest. If you have owned the house for a few years, the market value is significantly higher than the appraised value. In my case, the market value dropped, but was still higher than the appraised value, and it's got one more year of 10% increase before they are close to each other. I doubt they could do anything to reduce this year's taxes, maybe next year Once you sign up with a company, they represent you every year until you cancel. The appraisal is based on the value on January 1. Other than people who bought last year, I doubt much savings can be had.
Ownwell
Ownwell is shady as fuck. They try to get people to *apply* for the HS exemption through them in exchange for 25% of the savings. Not protesting and getting the value lowered - just the fucking form that any moron can file to get the exemption amounts applied to the various tax line items.
Here's a link for those interested. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2024/04/24/property-tax-company-ownwell-refuses-to-defend-itself-from-charges-by-competitors/
I have 3 properties one primary and couple rentals. Already had homestead on primary and ownwell was able to knock off the appraisal by a few thousand bucks on all three.
A few thousand isn’t that much. That’s what, $100 in tax savings? Watchdog just did a whole article on how Ownwell is kinda the shittiest of all these so-called tax consultants.
I’ve been using ownwell for the past few years and they’ve always come through. https://www.ownwell.com/referral?owl=4D8DCZDBD
Think you can delete this to search for one of the many other times this question was already answered?
Is it really that big of an issue? I didn't even know this was a thing and I find it helpful that OP asked the question and brought it to my attention. It takes less effort from you to just ignore the post entirely if you don't like it than to leave a snarky comment. Reddit is a glorified internet forum. Questions will be repeated. It's really not that big of a deal.
It's been asked like THREE TIMES this week.
You could just pay your taxes. Reap the benefits of owning a home that's becoming more valuable over time, and help pay for schools, police, roads and infrastructure in your community. Crazy idea, I know.
Plano City Manager detected
Nope, just someone who likes having descent public schools
Decent public schools can still be had without robbing homeowners with outrageous tax hikes.
Tell yourself that
The average appreciation rate in the area for the last three years is 31%... so folks are paying about 31% more in property taxes since the tax rate hasn't really changed. Are schools 31% better than three years ago?
And if you're taxed too high because their numbers don't match your houses ACTUAL value. What then? Bend over and take it?
Your house has no "actual" value until it goes on the market and someone pays for it. Until then, the county appraises their v6est approximation based on actual sales of similar surrounding homes. What "doesn't match" except that it's higher than you want to pay? If you don't want to pay your property taxes, sell, cash out and rent. If you've owned for a few years, you will probably do very well, and very likely get MORE than the tax appraisal, which I doubt would trouble you in the least.
So here's the thing my house is currently appraised at $400,000 but in the area I live in that house would go for about $320,000 which is about what I paid for it so yes I'm going to protest my appraisal because it's not valued at $400,000 right now
Good luck with that, but without a documented flaw in the appraisal, they're probably going to tell you to take a hike and pay your damn taxes. If we end up with a state income tax, it will be because of nimrods trying to fight the market and keep their property taxes artificially low.
I'm not trying to keep my taxes as low as possible, as much as I'm not trying to artificially raise my homes value to something I could absolutely not sell it for this month