I'm up 3% over last year, but my value / sq foot is $30 higher than my next door neighbor. Looks like I'm protesting.

aTm2004 said:

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+3% in 77345. Asshats.

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Up 1.7% in 77345. But I also got an excess escrow refund of nearly $1k and my 20-21 payment is going down for some reason.

You probably hit the limit they can keep, so the mortgage company probably did an escrow analysis and saw you're paying too much, so they adjusted your payment down and refunded you some of the excess. I had this issue with my first house back in '08 and I swore I would never escrow again, and haven't. Any "extra" stays in savings and has created a pretty decent egg for any future repairs we'll need.

basically broke even - 77379

Up 2.5% in Huntwick 77069

Went down by 2k in 77079. Such a small amount I'm surprised they "gifted" me with this reduction

CoachRTM said:

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I think it's time to finally start fighting back with someone other than my wife and myself.

Last year we did hours of research and had a rock solid case for our house to stay as is, but they basically completely disregarded it and stayed with the 13% increase.

Any recommendations on who to use to fight this for us?

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Be careful when you're looking at law firms to represent you. There's two 'gotchas' the law firms use. The first is that if they can't lower your rate they'll give you a $50 gift card. It gets a lot of people in the door, but it means jack crap in the face of a multihundred dollar increase in taxes when your case doesn't pan out.

What they actually do is show up on the courthouse with tons and tons of protests all bundled together. They go through them all and if yours doesn't get reduced-meh, you're just a number in a stack.Now if yours does get reduced the law firm will claim that they have saved you taxes on this year + the next two year's appraisals. They claim by beating down your rate this year they save you money next year because of the 10% limit. There will be some BS chart to magically prove their numbers. And while they are onto something, its just another BS number. They'll bundle up those three years of 'savings' and then say they want 25% of the money you saved.

You'll get pissed, but what are you going to do? Its lawyers you're fighting with. Any real dispute is going to cost you more than you're saving using them.

Not saying a lawyer won't help, but its a numbers game the law firms are playing.

TexAg2001 said:

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miley said:

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Down 9.3% in 77096

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WTH. Mine are up 8.5% in 77096. We protested (and won) last year, getting a 6% drop, but they've added all that back and then some!

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I looked at the values of all 51 homes on my street and mine is the highest cost/sf and exactly $50 more/sf than the average. I may have figured out why mine contiues to go up year after year despite protesting it. I spoke today with BR Lawson and he discovered that the renovation of my 1964 home that happened in 2014 (3 years before I bought it) is listed as a "Complete" renovation with the County. At least half the homes on my street are renovated, but he said they are all listed as "Extensive" renovation. Complete is defined as renovated down to the studs. Extensive is defined as new finishes, wall changes in a couple rooms, etc. Mine definitely falls into the Extensive category. He's going to fight to get that changed. He indicated that this typically accounts for a 20% - 30% higher appraised value over my neighbors.

TLDR: If you have an older renovated home, find out what "type" of renovation is on file with HCAD.

I argued the same thing on my place. It makes a big difference. Each one of those categories adds a different multiplier to the calculation. If you can drop it from a .7 to a .5 (making up numbers) it's a large (and most importantly permanent) difference.

I believe you are categorized as "total" rather than "complete"

Up 10% in 77056

Market value +34% in 77084

Appraised value +10%

Land value +140%
Improvements +8.4%

Looks like it is time for a protest...

Down 6% in 77035. I'm shocked.

aTm2004 said:

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You probably hit the limit they can keep, so the mortgage company probably did an escrow analysis and saw you're paying too much, so they adjusted your payment down and refunded you some of the excess. I had this issue with my first house back in '08 and I swore I would never escrow again, and haven't. Any "extra" stays in savings and has created a pretty decent egg for any future repairs we'll need.

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That's essentially what I'm going to do with it. I fund my mortgage payment through a bank account with that institution, which is different from the institution for my primary checking/savings account. First time I've gotten a refund. Usually they are short and have to charge me extra to play catch up.

10% in 77008. Any idea when Jubally will be ready?

txags92 said:

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Market value +34% in 77084

Appraised value +10%

Land value +140%
Improvements +8.4%

Looks like it is time for a protest...

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Good luck with getting your land reduced. One way the CAD holds value is increasing the land. They know their appraisers will not reduce it and they also know the ARB won't reduce it bc it will create a domino effect with properties surrounding it. Unless you have a closing statement for vacant land(which sometimes doesn't even work) your land is not going to change.

Your value will more than likely be this years land value plus last years improvement value.

Mr. McGibblets said:

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txags92 said:

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Market value +34% in 77084

Appraised value +10%

Land value +140%
Improvements +8.4%

Looks like it is time for a protest...

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Good luck with getting your land reduced. One way the CAD holds value is increasing the land. They know their appraisers will not reduce it and they also know the ARB won't reduce it bc it will create a domino effect with properties surrounding it. Unless you have a closing statement for vacant land(which sometimes doesn't even work) your land is not going to change.

Your value will more than likely be this years land value plus last years improvement value.

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I may have a bit of a trump card because we live near a mosque that typically buys every house that pops up for sale for whatever the asking price is. It isn't anything nefarious, they just have a lot of members that would like to be able to live within walking distance of the mosque, so they buy and then flip them to the people on the waiting list they have. I am thinking of going to them with the "market value" as an asking price and when they turn it down, use that as proof that it isn't really market value. If they don't turn it down, we will have sold the house for about $70k over what I thought we could get for it and we can go buy in a buyers market over the next few months.

Our appraised value only went up the 10% max, but at the moment, our appraised value is nearly $50k below the market value, so they have built in increases of the 10% max for at least the next 2 years unless the market value goes back down.

If you can get them to buy it over market, that's awesome, but HCAD isn't going to lower your values based on what some random third party will or won't pay.

You need to show arms length sales in the area or show that they are appraising your neighbors differently.

Except that it isnt a "random third party" buyer. I believe the last 4-5 sales made on our street were all purchased by that buyer for the asking price. So when it comes to our street, they ARE the recent market. But I do agree with you that I would need more than just that to try to justify it. My request to them prior to the protest would be for them to provide the recent nearby sales of residential land on which they are basing the 140% increase in appraisal.

Right, you just need to show sales.

The first thing HCAD will tell you when protesting is that "I couldn't sell my house for this price right now" is not going to get your price reduced. They need to see transactions.

txags92 said:

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Except that it isnt a "random third party" buyer. I believe the last 4-5 sales made on our street were all purchased by that buyer for the asking price. So when it comes to our street, they ARE the recent market. But I do agree with you that I would need more than just that to try to justify it. My request to them prior to the protest would be for them to provide the recent nearby sales of residential land on which they are basing the 140% increase in appraisal.

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Jubally can give you that information.

And this is what frustrates me so much about the process. From what I've seen HCAD has little more than an educated guess about the market value of a property and doesnt actually equitably distribute taxation based on market value. An example:

I know the market for the neighborhoods around me pretty well since I just bought a house and spent a ton of time in the last 2 years on MLS. A neighborhood approximately 2 miles from me is a nicer, slightly newer, and more desirable neighborhood then mine. Most homes sell for between $120 and $140 a square foot. A year ago I pulled all sales from their neighborhood for the prior 12 months from MLS. A cursory look at HCAD market valuations on several streets revealed that nearly every house was valued at less per square foot then comparable sales. All it took was 10 minutes and MLS data for me, a layman, to determine much of the neighborhood is undervalued.

Come to my neighborhood. Slightly older, less desirable neighborhood. Homes generally sell for between $95 and $130 per square foot. Wide disparity in price per square foot due to some older homes being largely renovated while others are original 1980s / 1990s.

So I get my market value for 1/1/2020 which raised over 20% and guess what? My home is valued at a higher price per square foot then homes in the more desirable neighboorhood. Again 5 minutes looking at MLS data will tell you that not only will the market not support the valuation of my house but also there is no conceivable way my house is worth more per square foot then a nicer neighborhood.

Frustrating in the age of data that I have to go fight garbage valuations each year. I dont even want to screw over the county and fight for every penny. I just want HCAD to follow state law and actually value my home based on market value.

I feel for all the people that aren't protesting and have paid more in property tax then they should be.

up 12% in 77004. Been keeping it down the last few years, so I guess I finally pay the price

I'm just guessing, but it's possible that the "nicer" area has more owners protesting, which ends up benefiting the whole area because of uniform appraisal rules.

You should encourage your neighbors to do the same. Maybe get on Nextdoor and point out this inconsistency. It sounds like you would all have a good case for protesting.

I totally understand what you are saying, but there is a fundamental problem with the CAD if they have the data to appraise property (more) accurately but are instead choosing not to and putting the burden on individuals to "prove" that their appraisal is wrong. They are knowingly over-valuing properties in the hope that people are too lazy to protest.

I do not understand how this is not grounds for a class-action lawsuit (other than the fact that the CAD probably has sovereign immunity).

I don't love the system either but there's no perfect way to do it. Every area has a different group of appraisers so you're going to get disparities between neighborhoods (or even different sections).

I would imagine the reason why a class action would go nowhere is because every owner has the ability to protest.

What the heck is Cost and Design?

Quote:

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Element...Details:
Cost and Design...Partial

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From my old buddy at Jubally:

Diggity said:

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I argued the same thing on my place. It makes a big difference. Each one of those categories adds a different multiplier to the calculation. If you can drop it from a .7 to a .5 (making up numbers) it's a large (and most importantly permanent) difference.

I believe you are categorized as "total" rather than "complete"

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You are correct. Mine says "Total" for Cost and Design. Also states "Excellent" for both Cond / Desir / Util and Physical Condition. My neighbor's house, which I feel we most compare to, shows "Extensive" Cost and Design and "Very Good" for the other categories.

Cost/SF wise, my home is appraising for 21% more than my neighbors.

Up 10% in 77019

Will be contesting - market hasn't gone up at all.

Aggie09Derek said:

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Up 10% in 77019

Will be contesting - market hasn't gone up at all.

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Yes, but have you "caught up" to the market value yet?

Pretty new build - was already at market

Diggity said:

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From my old buddy at Jubally:



How hard are is it to get From "Extensive" for Cost and Design to Partial? I went down 4% from last year but My assessed is $16/sqft more than theirs and Both our homes are renovated similarly. Is there a way to protest this?

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From: HCAD Hearing Administrator
To: Property Tax Agents

First of all, we would like to thank you for your patience as we work through this time of uncertainty. We sincerely hope that you and your families are well, and that we get through this very soon. The start of onsite hearings is being postponed until further notice, but we encourage you to utilize our online options for informal settlements. Attached, you will find the 2020 Chief Appraiser Policies and the 2020 ARB Hearing Rules and Procedures.

As you all know, the legislature gave us some work to do after the last session. SB2 alone was huge and has dominated our time and efforts. The reason that we did not conduct our typical lessons learned meeting at the end of the year was we knew that we were going to have to make some significant changes and needed time to figure out our plan of action.

In 2019, we saw a lot of records brokenincluding a record number of protests (423k), electronic settlements, and formal hearings conducted. It was because of very efficient management and cooperation between HCAD, the ARB, and the agent community, that we were able to achieve record approval a week earlier than normal. One of the big contributors to the efficiency was agents utilizing Express Informals. By settling over 63,000 accounts electronically, it really helped us make up the time we would have lost due to the huge increase in protests. Last year, we changed it to where we didn't tie the express offers or evidence to scheduling. We'll keep that the same and once again, we're going to get the offers out to you as quickly as possible.

2020 brings new challenges. We fully expect the protest count to remain above 400k, but the legislature has now given us a deadline of July 20th to achieve record approval. This means that we must figure out a way to resolve over 90% of the value for the county two weeks earlier than our previous best. This was going to be a difficult task for us, but now that COVID-19 is in the picture it becomes a nearly impossible task.

We quickly realized that the most significant change we needed to make was regarding informal meetings and the timeline.

New for 2020:

1. We are no longer going to be batch scheduling informal meetings for agents.

*To be clearYOU MAY STILL HAVE AN INFORMAL MEETING*

There are several reasons for this change: one is because as participation increases in electronic informal settlements, the participation in face to face informal meetings continues to decline. Another reason is for time savings. We can eliminate two weeks from the scheduling process, while still making informal meetings available. Therefore, we are giving control back to the agents to decide which accounts they feel they can settle informally, and they have the opportunity to come in any time prior to their formal hearing date to sit down with an appraiser to resolve the accounts. Agents are also welcome to group accounts and reserve a date and time to come in.

If you elect to walk in with a list of accounts, you will be asked to give your list to the staff at the front counter. You will then have a seat while they process the list for informal meetings and ensure that evidence has been built. Once complete, you will be checked into the informal meeting queues and wait to be pulled by an appraiser as we have always done in the past.

Include in your email a list of the accounts on an excel spreadsheet and the date and time you would like to come in. We will coordinate with the appropriate appraisal divisions to ensure that the date works for them and process your list accordingly. We recommend contacting us in advance in order to minimize your wait time and ensure that we will have the appropriate resources available on the requested date.

2. The opportunity to settle accounts through Topline is available for commercial properties valued at $1M and above. Please see page 4 of the 2020 Chief Appraiser Policies for more details.

3. We are working on increasing the ability for our appraisers to conduct informal meetings via telephone. This is currently being developed and is dependent upon our anticipated availability in late April.

In a year where the legislature gave us new challenges, it doesn't compare to the uncertainty of a situation we cannot control. Our priority is to do our best to keep our employees and customers safe and healthy. As things develop, we will continue to reach out to you with any major updates or changes to our 2020 hearings plan.

The 2020 Market Trends presentations will be available on our website by the end of the month.

Thank you,

Jeff Morrison, RPA, CCA, CTA
Chief of Hearings
Harris County Appraisal District
13013 Northwest Freeway
Houston, TX 77040

So, in theory we should have a better chance to succeed in Isettle?

I think there is only a certain % you can get through isettle. I suspect this year they will increase that % or remove it in order to meet the requirements and social distancing guidelines.