one MEEN Ag said:

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Does he have pictures before the renovation and is the renovation just indoors?

If he just bought his house and it's a great deal, just submit the house sale price and shut their mouths. They don't know about the renovations.

I would go as far as an informal meeting. Being sworn in at a formal meeting with extensive home renovations is an easy way to have your valuation raised.

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They may know of the renovations if the contractor pulled a permit for the work from Harris County.

That is true. I was assuming they did the work themselves. Which if it is extensive, that's rarely the case.

Just submitted to Jubally. Value estimate was lower than appraisal but still $55k more then I purchased the home in Dec 2018. Located in 77450 which is not experiencing much appreciation. I refinanced this year and already have an independent appraisal for less than the Jubally number.

Jubally estimate is 8% above list price for homes identical to mine.

txags92 said:

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one MEEN Ag said:

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Does he have pictures before the renovation and is the renovation just indoors?

If he just bought his house and it's a great deal, just submit the house sale price and shut their mouths. They don't know about the renovations.

I would go as far as an informal meeting. Being sworn in at a formal meeting with extensive home renovations is an easy way to have your valuation raised.

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They may know of the renovations if the contractor pulled a permit for the work from Harris County.

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This is the case. Most certainly permits on record.

Forgive my ignorance, but I didn't protest my property taxes last year (valued 1/2019) because they only went up to the purchase price I bought my home for in June 2018. The property tax increase as of 1/2020 was up 18k. Could arguing the purchase price less than two years ago (18 months to be exact) lower the valuation?

Also, I filed through the HCAD iFile Protest system already, what is the typical turnaround time?

TIA!

CFTXAG10 said:

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Forgive my ignorance, but I didn't protest my property taxes last year (valued 1/2019) because they only went up to the purchase price I bought my home for in June 2018. The property tax increase as of 1/2020 was up 7-8 percent. Could arguing the purchase price less than two years ago (18 months to be exact) lower the valuation?

Also, I filed through the HCAD iFile Protest system already, what is the typical turnaround time?

TIA!

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What was the value January 1,2020?

Jumped from 225K to 243k

AgLiving06 said:

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Down 6% in 77035. I'm shocked.

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An O'Connor got it down another 3% or so.

Not sure I understand why the taxable value is down now, but I'll take it.

CFTXAG10 said:

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Forgive my ignorance, but I didn't protest my property taxes last year (valued 1/2019) because they only went up to the purchase price I bought my home for in June 2018. The property tax increase as of 1/2020 was up 18k. Could arguing the purchase price less than two years ago (18 months to be exact) lower the valuation?

Also, I filed through the HCAD iFile Protest system already, what is the typical turnaround time?

TIA!

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Yes, at least at the board meeting. No way it jumped that much in 18 months.

Got my Jubally report, going for a $13k reduction with 10 comps. Jubally makes this about as "fun" as this process can be.

I'm kind of suspicious about this whole O'Connor thing. It feels like it's possible for there to be some coordination to where the tax accessors raise your valuation and OC lowers it every year without merit, just to keep feeding money into OC pockets. Meanwhile, people like me are just happy to see "results".

I used to do O'Connor then switched to Jubally. In my experience, I have had better success with Jubally and it was cheaper.

AgLiving06 said:

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AgLiving06 said:

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Down 6% in 77035. I'm shocked.

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An O'Connor got it down another 3% or so.

Not sure I understand why the taxable value is down now, but I'll take it.

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HCAD seems to be generally sending out "please lets make this go away" settlement offers to agents on pretty much most residential property and some are in the range of 5%-10% off of the noticed values. I dont know what they're gonna do with their iSettle numbers that they send to property owners, but it looks like they are motivated to get volume of the number of hearings down and are trying to be more happy to just settle an account than they have been in the past.

I can't vouch for who is running the company now, but I met the owner of O'Connor about 20 years ago when I was working a pipeline spill that impacted his mom's property. He and his mom were very nice folks and seemed like the only people impacted by the spill that were just trying to get a fair deal from the company responsible (which they did) instead of trying to work them over for the biggest paycheck. I would be quite surprised if he was involved in anything shady with the appraisal district.

HotardAg07 said:

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I'm kind of suspicious about this whole O'Connor thing. It feels like it's possible for there to be some coordination to where the tax accessors raise your valuation and OC lowers it every year without merit, just to keep feeding money into OC pockets. Meanwhile, people like me are just happy to see "results".

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HCAD has a system to settle accounts with agents similar to what they do with iSettle for property owners. In most years more than half of their "offers" are for no change and the rest are tiny pittances of like $1-5000 reductions that I would assume no agents ever really take except in rare circumstances.

This year, almost every account has a significant reduction. Many agents will take them, I think. I dont think any agent normally gets like 4% reduction on 95% of their residential accounts ever, its more like you lose on half and get 5% on half at the board. I assume many agents are happily settling accounts now, but its not some scam with HCAD. HCAD over the past 20 years has become more and more inflexible on settling accounts ever, much less cutting some raise and lower deal with consultants.

Can you go through isettle, see what they offer and then do an informal of you don't like it?

Trying to see if the isettle comes close to jubally quote and avoid going in if it's close rather than the whole informal/formal dance.

aTm_bomb said:

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Can you go through isettle, see what they offer and then do an informal of you don't like it?

Trying to see if the isettle comes close to jubally quote and avoid going in if it's close rather than the whole informal/formal dance.

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Unfortunately, I dont think anybody (even the CAD) can give you guidance on "will you be able to do this or that?" with any kind of certainty for this year.

aTm_bomb said:

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Can you go through isettle, see what they offer and then do an informal of you don't like it?

Trying to see if the isettle comes close to jubally quote and avoid going in if it's close rather than the whole informal/formal dance.

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In the past, iSettle took the place of the informal meeting with the agent. If you rejected their settle amount you had the option to take it to a formal meeting. I've done iSettle 3-4 times and had some reasonably good results. Only once did I get exactly what I asked for, which probably means that I missed something and could have gotten more.

Do you know how we find the zone analyst and if our neighborhood is affected by the factor codes?

Recommendations for protest companies?
Thinking about attempting iSettle myself, if they don't accept it, hire a company - has anyone done this?

pnut02 said:

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Do you know how we find the zone analyst and if our neighborhood is affected by the factor codes?

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The factor codes should apply to about any residential neighborhood out there. I haven't seen many "economic misimprovements " but that's about it.

Thanks,
The good news is that a lot of my comparables are Partial in my manual calculations.

Does HCAD's pdata show recent sales?

So got my Jubally report and shows a very favorable Comparable Market valuation based on sales during 2019. However, looking at the values on HCAD, I can see that a few of them used their sales values in 2019 to adjust last years value as the sales price I see in my comp matches the Jan 1 2019 value exactly. The Jan 1 2020 value has obviously spiked substantially in HCAD.

Does that have any impact on my arguement of using the comps sales price as my evidence if that sales price was already used to reduce the comps value last year?

TLDR - If a comps 2019 sales price was used to reduce its value last year, is the sales price still valid for me to use this year?

sure

As long as there are not newer comps that are higher, then sure, last year's comps can still be valid.

txags92 said:

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As long as there are not newer comps that are higher, then sure, last year's comps can still be valid.

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Feel pretty good about it as some of the comps are more complete Reno's and higher grades but sold for less than my market value. Hopefullu optimistic.

third coast.. said:

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Stupid gcad values still not available

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I just got mine in the mail. Up 40 ****ing grand after a 25 grand increase last year..... Im in a 2,000 sqft house

I did my part to vote that **** ***** out of office.... No one else did

third coast.. said:

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Cheryl johnson? She was at a function I was at last november schmoozing with the waterfront folks with her cut tax bull***** GMAFB. Had it all over her car as well.

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Yup that cum guzzling *****