JAggie2007 said:

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77008

Market - Same

Appraised - Same

Purchased August 2013. Didn't file Homestead first year(rookie mistake) so got a 32% increase 14-15. Have protested every year and its gone down 12% since that initial bump. Will protest again this year.

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The HE cap doesn't go into effect until you have owned the home one full calendar year. In your case, it would have gone into effect in Jan 2015. There is no way you could have avoided an increase in 2014. It happens to everyone the first year after purchasing.

77079
Land valuation flat
Improvement valuation up 70%
There were no changes to the structure last year. We partially redid a bathroom the year before.

77096 - Parkwest 1 - no change which was a pleasant surprise. Gonna see what Jubally says but inclined not to dispute.

no change here either

77079 - Still pending.

agnatgas said:

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77079
Land valuation flat
Improvement valuation up 70%
There were no changes to the structure last year. We partially redid a bathroom the year before.

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Damn. You got bent over.

Flat 2 years running

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The HE cap doesn't go into effect until you have owned the home one full calendar year. In your case, it would have gone into effect in Jan 2015. There is no way you could have avoided an increase in 2014. It happens to everyone the first year after purchasing.

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Can be a huge advantage to buying a fixer-upper. You have that closing statement to protest the new valuation.

Another suggestion (lucked into this one). Buy a home from someone 80+ years old. Their taxes got capped at age 65, and won't change until the following year. Nice windfall.

No change. Wondering if I should challenge or keep my mouth shut. HCAD has the wrong number of bedrooms listed for my house.

Market flat

Appraised up 1% to match market.

Still lowest appraised property on the street, mainly because nobody else protests. We beat them up bad last year to straighten out our ridiculous market value and got it dropped 18% in the settlement. That saved our bacon this year because there was no relevant comp. otherwise I would definitely have taken a full 10% hit.

ETA: 77041 area

Just bought a house in Montgomery County (community off Grand Parkway) last year and have a few questions for some of the seasoned area homeowners on the board:

- Assessed value is less than what I paid for the house by ~$500 which is good. However, when looking at the 3 homes that are my EXACT builder floor plan in my gated community, they are appraised for 7k, 7k, and 37k less. The one for 37k less sold two months after me. The other two are about 1 or 2 years older. The one for 37k less has the same lot size. Only difference is my home backs up to a community park. One of the two for 7k less than me also backs up to said park. Other home, not on park with smaller lot, has been for sale for months with price lowered to 21k less than what I paid too. Should I protest or just be happy it's less than what I paid for it?

- Square footage listed differs from builders floor plan. Builder docs say 3272 and appraisal district lists 3400. The other comps mentioned above are also wrong on the high side too. My appraisal doc from the sale though has it as 3429 so that doesn't help me. Should I try to get it changed based on the builders floor plan estimate or leave it be?

I submitted my homestead exemption in January, but they apparently "lost it" so I'm going to hand deliver a new one to them this week or next. Thanks in advance for any guidance.

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- Assessed value is less than what I paid for the house by ~$500 which is good

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I'm no expert but considering you just bought it, I'd call it good and walk away. You can always argue the square footage at a future date as that is pretty black and white and not easily changed. Save that bullet. Or to put it another way considering you just bought the place, if they had valued it at $50,000 more than what you paid and were going to protest, walking in would you be happy if they were to lower it to your actual sale price?

No change - 77007 Huuuyessss

Whatever you do, tread lightly. The Montgomery County appraisal district folks are nuclear levels of stupid. My first experience with those idiots was last year. We closed in May 2016 and the appraised value was $127.5k greater than what I paid for my house, so I protested. They said, "nope, can't go all the way down to purchase price because the appraised value is as of 1/1/16 and you didn't close until 5/27/16. They ended dropping it 100k to $27.5k above what I paid. I asked them if what they are saying is that my home value dropped by $27.5k to my purchase price between 1/1/16 and 05/27/16. They said yes, that's what were saying.

I just got my 2017 appraisal and it is 75k more than what I paid last year. If they are right, my value dropped $27.5k from 1/1/16 - 5/27/16 and then increased by $75k from 5/28/16-1/1/17. I can't wait for them to try to rationalize this. I must be some type of wizard because I bought at the exact time my house had its lowest value.

blindey said:

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No change. Wondering if I should challenge or keep my mouth shut. HCAD has the wrong number of bedrooms listed for my house.

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Bedrooms do not add value on their cost system. Bathrooms, fireplaces, elevators, outdoor kitchens, pools, hot tubs, covered patios, and sheds do.

hth

Sheds? For real?

Mr. McGibblets said:

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blindey said:

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No change. Wondering if I should challenge or keep my mouth shut. HCAD has the wrong number of bedrooms listed for my house.

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Bedrooms do not add value on their cost system. Bathrooms, fireplaces, elevators, outdoor kitchens, pools, hot tubs, covered patios, and sheds do.

hth

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bathroom number is wrong by 1/2 too.

That's $1500 in value.

Looking for some advice here.

We have owned a house in Knollwood Village (77025) since 2005. Last October we moved out and are going from 2100 square feet to about 4100 sq ft. We are still in the process of this addition/renovation. On January 1st I took photos of the house, it was basically the original foundation with a few walls standing at that time. The appraised value went up 29% over last year. This number is based on the value of the house on January 1st I believe. So, my value should have really gone down because on January 1 because it was basically just the land value (plus the slab and a few walls). So, do I have an argument with HCAD to lower to the value of my photos I took?

Secondly, because I have a homestead on the house, moving forward shouldn't it only increase 10% over whatever this years value ends up being? My market value will increase considerably due to the addition/renovation, but the appraised value will take some time to catch up to this because of my homestead. My thought is that it should start increasing year after year from the dollar amount it is worth this year on January 1st (slab and a few walls). Is this correct?

thenational said:

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So, do I have an argument with HCAD to lower to the value of my photos I took?

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Yes.

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Secondly, because I have a homestead on the house, moving forward shouldn't it only increase 10% over whatever this years value ends up being?

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Ha, no.

thenational said:

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Looking for some advice here.

We have owned a house in Knollwood Village (77025) since 2005. Last October we moved out and are going from 2100 square feet to about 4100 sq ft. We are still in the process of this addition/renovation. On January 1st I took photos of the house, it was basically the original foundation with a few walls standing at that time. The appraised value went up 29% over last year. This number is based on the value of the house on January 1st I believe. So, my value should have really gone down because on January 1 because it was basically just the land value (plus the slab and a few walls). So, do I have an argument with HCAD to lower to the value of my photos I took?

Secondly, because I have a homestead on the house, moving forward shouldn't it only increase 10% over whatever this years value ends up being? My market value will increase considerably due to the addition/renovation, but the appraised value will take some time to catch up to this because of my homestead. My thought is that it should start increasing year after year from the dollar amount it is worth this year on January 1st (slab and a few walls). Is this correct?

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after the addition the house tax appraisal can increase to anything, then after that 10% a year. prepare thy anus

Rustys-Beef-o-Reeno said:

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thenational said:

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Looking for some advice here.

We have owned a house in Knollwood Village (77025) since 2005. Last October we moved out and are going from 2100 square feet to about 4100 sq ft. We are still in the process of this addition/renovation. On January 1st I took photos of the house, it was basically the original foundation with a few walls standing at that time. The appraised value went up 29% over last year. This number is based on the value of the house on January 1st I believe. So, my value should have really gone down because on January 1 because it was basically just the land value (plus the slab and a few walls). So, do I have an argument with HCAD to lower to the value of my photos I took?

Secondly, because I have a homestead on the house, moving forward shouldn't it only increase 10% over whatever this years value ends up being? My market value will increase considerably due to the addition/renovation, but the appraised value will take some time to catch up to this because of my homestead. My thought is that it should start increasing year after year from the dollar amount it is worth this year on January 1st (slab and a few walls). Is this correct?

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after the addition the house tax appraisal can increase to anything, then after that 10% a year. prepare thy anus

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You may get lucky. I have some friends that tore down 2-3 houses to build one. HCAD was lazy in their area and did not value it based on the new house the first year they were there. They then got he homestead exemption and it will take about 10 years for HCAD to get them up to where it should be 10% at a time.

dp

For one year you will have a weird hybrid homestead cap.

Your cap next year should be this years appraised value plus 10% of this years value plus the market value of only the new additions.

As far as what you should do this year, it could be a very complicated question, yes you theoretically should be able to lower the value to the value of the property as it existed on January 1st, but because of your homestead exemption, that could theoretically alter the appraisal district's viewpoint of what should be assessed at market value as the new additions not subject to the homestead cap the next year and create a fight over that.

For example, if you convince an ARB to decide your lot is only land value this year, then next year the CAD will interpret that 100% of the improvement value will not be subject to the cap because it's new additions over last years land only.

However if you dont aggressively go for it to be valued as land only, and they view your construction as a partial addition/renovation and not a complete rebuild, maybe only the added 2000 new square feet will be fully not subject to the cap rather than all 4100 SF not being subject to the cap.

In practice I would say it would be pretty hard to judge those factors. Plus, you never know what the CAD will screw up (for or against you), or what an ARB just wont listen to you on, or have a complicated issue be over their heads, etc.

I'm wondering if it would be better to not protest so that I don't call any attention to my remodel/addition?

thenational said:

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I'm wondering if it would be better to not protest so that I don't call any attention to my remodel/addition?

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If you're in the city and pulled permits (which I assume you did with that extensive of a remodel), they're going to know what you did anyway as the permit office sends HCAD that info.

They will probably have a vague idea of what you did based on any permits that have been obtained.

94chem said:

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Quote:

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The HE cap doesn't go into effect until you have owned the home one full calendar year. In your case, it would have gone into effect in Jan 2015. There is no way you could have avoided an increase in 2014. It happens to everyone the first year after purchasing.

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Can be a huge advantage to buying a fixer-upper. You have that closing statement to protest the new valuation.

Another suggestion (lucked into this one). Buy a home from someone 80+ years old. Their taxes got capped at age 65, and won't change until the following year. Nice windfall.

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That's actually bad for you. All of the taxes they couldn't jack up will hit you in your 1st year before you get homestead capped.

Mr. McGibblets said:

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blindey said:

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No change. Wondering if I should challenge or keep my mouth shut. HCAD has the wrong number of bedrooms listed for my house.

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Bedrooms do not add value on their cost system. Bathrooms, fireplaces, elevators, outdoor kitchens, pools, hot tubs, covered patios, and sheds do.

hth

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Stupid for looks to raise the value of taxes because it nets you a big fat zero when you sell.

Question: if we mailed in the HCAD Residential Exemption whatnot, do we get some kind of receipt? Or is just filed and noted...?

We mailed ours last month, but haven't seen a 'receipt' yet.

no response but look yourself up on HCAD.org and see if the exemption has shown up yet.

Flat in 77080