woodiewood1 said:
Just get a real estate agent friend to pull comps for your house and then pull the appraised values of similar homes within a few blocks of you. You can assemble a very good argument to support your claim of a too high an appraisal.
This, and...... Make sure that the comps are REALLY comps. Each home as a "rating" regarding it's quality. For example, an RV5 is a slightly lesser quality than a RV5P. That's listed under the "Class CD" column on your record on the website. What I do is look at all the homes in my neighborhood with the same quality rating as mine and look at their values. Then I find comps in my area that are of the same quality rating mine is and see where my valuation sits. Someone has to be at the bottom. If there is a home that sold below the value they've placed on mine, I use that to argue that there's no reason my home is any more valuable than that one on a per sq. ft. basis.
I've never lost. I've literally had hundreds of thousands of dollars of valuation taken off my property. Takes time and effort, but at least you know it was done right. I started doing this because I hired a firm and lost. The next year I appealed and did it myself. Sat down with the appraiser and he explained how it all works.
For the record, mine got jacked up 10% this year too. But I can't protest it, I'm the lowest of my type in my neighborhood. Good luck,