1bad03snake

iTrader: (16)

Last year I paid O'Connor to fight my appraisal... That was a joke. Out of the 28800 they raised my property value they only managed to get 800.00 knocked off. This year I plan on fighting it myself as it increased abother 15000.00. Any and all advice is appreciated

DSIM

iTrader: (1)

What are houses like yours selling for in your area? If they are selling for what is being appraised, youre going to have an uphill battle.

imma_stocker

iTrader: (19)

Plan to hire Paul Bettencourt this year.
http://www.btanow.com/residential-fr...sked-questions

007FJ

iTrader: (28)

Just fight it yourself. I always do. I try to get others to do fight it also.

Check other prices of sold houses. Check Realtor and sites like that. Over zealous local appraisal offices sucking up to Austin is truly sad and dishonest. Ride down from Callallen to Robstown to Benavides to Agua Dulce then Alice. It continues like that all over the so called poor school districts. Same thing in Pawnee, Runge, Falls City, Kenedy and Karnes City. Multi districts to justify having lots of administration. Go to Victoria and other districts like that and the whole county goes to one or two schools because they aren't on the receiving end of the Austin Sugar Tit.

Sorry to tangent on you but it really is crooked how the money is used and these so called rich districts combined with *** sucking appraisal offices really hit people hard.

03Sssnake

iTrader: (20)

Agree with the above, definitely find similar houses selling in the area, obviously cherry pic the lowest prices. Take pictures of any issues on the property, exterior issues, roof etc. Do it on a cloudy/overcast day, you want them to look gloomy. You could also get your own appraisal and inspection. We have been fighting this year on year and so far have not had a tax increase, going on 6 years now. I am also fortunate to have a brother that is an attorney, had him file our protest as well.

01WS6/tamu

iTrader: (37)

Dammed if you do dammed if you don't. My parents live south of san Antonio and couldn't get what their home is appraised for if they wanted to try to sell. It's waay to high for what it is. They've fought it the last 2 years and got very little reduction in value. Now the oil fields tanked we'll see how long it takes to come back down.

Here is brazos county the appraisals are the other way around the appraisals are reasonable but homes are selling for 20-40K over the stinking appraisal value. Cant afford to buy a house here dumps in the ghetto are 140-150K

codyvette

iTrader: (24)

Tell the appraiser to step outside and smell the air.

1bad03snake

iTrader: (16)

on my street It verys as much as 75k between a one story to a big 2 story. My neighbors house is a 3 car garage and 100sqft smaller but is appraised at 20k less.

Texfinn

iTrader: (39)

Of course it does. That's why you have to find comparable size houses in the neighboring area.

The appraisal district's website should have a feature where you can search completed sales in your city, street or even neighborhood.

Nine Ball

iTrader: (38)

I've had to do it the last 6 years. Print out copies of HAR.com listings in your neighborhood and immediate area, with similar sq-ft home sizes. I bring the lowest and the highest, because they seem to keep trying to appraise my home higher than the highest has listed or sold for, which isn't legit. Usually just need 4-5 good examples to compare with. They bank on the fact that most people are lazy/uninformed and won't protest the tax hike. Idiots will mostly sit around and say "Hey! Our home value went up! We're makin' money!!!". LOL when they go to sell it and it is worth far less.

bigfatls6

iTrader: (34)

The taxes are based off of COMPs in your area. Unless your a realtor you can't get the actual sells price for homes that have sold. Find a realtor and talk to them and see if they will give you actual real comps for what has recently sold in your area. If you can find some comps lower than what they appraised your home for that are good comparisons same Sq ft etc take the copies of the comps and fight it your self. Its easy to do. Now if you have a shop or a lot of paved driveway the other homes don't have your screwed.

Camaraderie

Just go to law school and pass the bar . Best advice .

hammer71

The only time that we were able to reduce our taxes was to show up at the protest with pictures and video. We took pictures when the ditches overflowed and streets flooded. as well as when trash was dumped in open lots. We showed videos of cars speeding down our street. We actually got our taxes reduced to what they were before. Also, do your whole area, not just your neighbors.

Torch Rot Z

Great advice. We've been doing the same thing, just fighting it ourselves. They really hope people are just going to take it as is. So far (3 years) we have minimized/stopped the increase. Just have to step up and say something. Granted, different offices will approach/fight it differently. Just make sure your heard.

-Ross-

iTrader: (2)

It would seem (to me) that, with the current housing market, bringing in a realtor's list of sold homes or current homes for sale would not help your fight to have your tax appraisal lowered. In my experience, appraised tax value is almost always lower than market value.

I'd say your best bet is to get on the county's website and look at other homes' tax values in your neighborhood. If you are higher than comps, then print their info out and fight it.

zero2sixT

iTrader: (4)

I agree with this. My home, based on county appraisal has 20k in equity. Based on the current sale price of the same floor plan, it has ~50k.

Unless they went crazy with the appraisal, I wouldn't fight it. They increased the value of my home for 2014. My escrow went up $7. This year it was flat. Which is kind of funny. The area I'm in has a huge shortage of listings.

1bad03snake

iTrader: (16)

My house has the same market and appraisal value. Last year was a 14% increase. This year another 10% I tried ifile and was denied on what I thought my house was worth. Now I get to go to the hearing to fight it.

jdoyle

iTrader: (27)

same here. I was DENIED.

1bad03snake

iTrader: (16)

Bumping this since I just got my appraisal finished. I said the hell with it and hired Oconnor again and they lowered my tax bill by 30K this year. Its actually 11K lower than I said it was worth when I appealed it online.

LeadfootDuramax

iTrader: (6)

I use O'Connor. Some years they have been very successful, others not. They only get paid if they save me, so they are incentivized to get my value lowered. When they have not been successful, it has been obvious why.

I live close in and home values have gone crazy the in the 10+ years I have lived in my home. One of the 2 times they have not been able to reduce it, homes very close (once next door and once 3 houses down) sold for more than double what my home was valued at after the increase. It's pretty hard to fight values when that happens. Some years they have still gotten decent reductions despite the home sales right around me for similar homes.

I am sure Bettencourt is similar. Different flavor of the same thing.

I have some friends and co-workers who have tried to fight on their own. Some with moderate success, some with none. A few have basically been told that they are not experts and don't understand while the county appraiser is. Then they are basically shown the door with no change in value.

As said above, look at what homes around you are selling for. This is going to be the biggest part.

Another thing many people overlook when they hire someone is that they can provide help. Take pictures of things that are wrong, standing water in heavy rain, etc. Anything to make your home look less valuable than the average or show that the homes right around you are not in as good of condition as those sold recently. In years I have done this, O'Connor has had much better success.

On Edit: I cannot recall the details, but my value was increase 12% a couple of years back. The limit was 10%. I believe I was told if I did not protest it within X amount of time the increase stuck even though it was over the 10% cap. This is a simple way to reduce you value if it was increase more than 10%. One of my neighbors is a state rep and told me they passed or were close to passing an amendment making that cap 5%. I need to ask him what happened with that.