Thanks Aaron.

I don't do iSettle, and didn't this year, but I do usually include my opinion of the value when filing the protest. I just got an email from HCAD offering exactly when I put in as my opinion (which was the Jubally value). I feel I can make a case for even less, but it's already a $14.8k drop so I'm going to take it! If I did turn it down, the email clearly states the normal process would proceed, including the informal. So confirmed, they are sending out offers outside the iSettle system.

Great news! What was the time gap from submitting ifile to receiving an offer?

Tried jubulee and was told not enough in my area to have a comparison
So I just put in on my own yesterday

Ya know, I can't find a way to see when I filed, but I'm thinking it was sometime between Apr 13th - 16th.

Is Jubally basically just pulling the comps from HAR? I have the HAR comps for the last six months of 2019 for my property but they're pretty limited.

I think they're comparing you to your neighbors tax valuation as well.

Not sure it's pulling HAR data, but it could be.

No. (I'm guessing) They use an algorithm to pull the 10 best comps in your neighborhood. Then they do a comparable analysis to adjust their values to be on par within yours to show the true difference. Then they provide the written report, analysis, and supporting math so you can present and defend your protest.

That's all after you decide to pay the $75 for the pdf report. They give you a simple summary along with their opinion of the strength of your case before so you can decide if you want to pay.

They use sales prices and sellers contributions as well so I have to assume they are getting something from HAR. I have had good success using Jubally in the past. If you go through the formal protest and get no reduction, they will refund your purchase as a guarantee. Its been worth the money for me since I bought my house in 2013.

Has anyone used real estate listing pictures as part of their evidence packet in addition to sales data to support their evidence? Is that frowned upon as it may impact your neighbors values?

Very easy to pull up comps in my neighborhood of homes with recently updated kitchens / baths that are valued at less per square foot then my 2006 kitchen and 1991 bathrooms... HCAD has also deemed these homes a lower Condition /Desir / Util as mine which doesn't make sense.

Well they gave me my iSettle. But it is still 10K higher than any of the similar sized homes on my street or the next one over. They initially sized my house 300 sq feet too big so that is why I protested.

I guess I reject it and just show what they've valued the other homes next to me? Some of them even the same floor plan. Also 20K above my appraisal that I got in July. Is it as simple at that for proof? I don't want anything crazy. Just for them to value it similar to what my neighbors are.

Below are the comps:

House SQ FT/Lot Size/Valuation

My house:

2617 (they said it was 2945)/6063/368K (iSettle 350K)

Comps on my street or the next street over

2645/9196/341K my exact floor plan, bigger lot
2637/5555/335K
2540/7281/242K (they obviously ****ed this one up on the homeowners favor) my floor plan, bigger lot
2603/5489/333K
2603/8845/342K
2735/6162/343K

So what is next? They schedule a hearing for me or something? Just pisses me off I have to deal with their clear **** up. And then they fail to adequately correct it via iSettle. I'd be perfectly happy getting in between 333k-342K because those are my exact house. The 342K has a much bigger lot.

I filed my iProtest a few weeks ago and and got an email this week from HCAD offering an appraised and market value below what I had prior to any increases.

Prior year appraisal = x;
Current year appraisal from HCAD = x + 25,000;
Email offer from HCAD = x - 10,000 (both market and appraised)

I think what they offered in the email was in the neighborhood of the preliminary estimate Jubally calculated. Don't know if I left money on the table or not, but I'm going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Seems like HCAD is ready to make some deals.

Have to say I was extremely happy with the isettle process this year. I wrote a half-hearted paragraph about a month ago asking for a 12% discount and earlier this week my offer came in at 9.5% decrease. This is in 77055. I hit the accept button about as fast as I could.

I took my isettle offer of $9k increase down from $31k. With the January comps I don't think I could do any better going through with the fight. I've never even gotten an offer before, usually a flat rejection.

How long after your protest did you receive the settlement offer?

Probably two weeks. I didn't go crazy with my proposed value - just keep it the same as last year.

I WTF! Got this email today

Dear Property Owner:
 

Thank you for signing up for our iSettle program. Unfortunately, after reviewing the information we have available, we cannot propose an online settlement for your 2020 protest. Since sales disclosure is not mandatory in Texas, we acknowledge that our market information may not be complete and that you may have evidence unique to your property that may support a reduction in your property's market value. To be sure you have an adequate opportunity to have it reviewed, we will be setting you up for appointments with one of our appraisers and for a hearing with the Appraisal Review Board. The Appraisal Review Board will set a hearing for your protest and notify you electronically or by mail of the time, date and place of the hearing by standard USPS mail.

I didn't turn over my sales price info from June 2018. Didn't need to argue at the beginning of 2019 because the value still didn't rise to the level of the purchase price. Then this year they went about 23k over the purchase price so I went ahead and told them what it was and got news the other day they are valuing it at the 23k reduced original purchase price. Worth it if you ask me, but now I am sure they will jack it up next year unless they think everyone will be arguing Corona impact on values.

I protested my at the purchase price last year and they reduced it for 2019. For 2020 they jacked it up $76k so get ready for a fun battle in 2021.

I actually ended up a bit dissatisfied with Jullably a couple years ago. It was advertised as an "Excellent" case for whatever their valuation was, but when I bought the data they only had 2 recent sales comps and I found out at the informal that one of them was marked by HCAD as not being valid for comparisons for whatever reason. Thankfully I was still able to reduce it, but not by nearly as much as their "Excellent" case value.

I just started building my own case after that experience. In fact for this year, I built a nice little spreadsheet tool for myself to pull in recent sales comps from my realtor buddy and the HCAD public data (which took forever for me to wrap my head around) for a uniform/equal comparison. I was almost excited about bringing that in to the informal/formal to argue my case, especially if I needed to go to the formal to argue uniform/equal. I would have argued to take off another $5k off what they ultimately offered based on the 98 other houses in my neighborhood within 10% of my sqft.

Has anyone had an in person informal this year?

Kinda hard to have a in person hearing when all CADs are closed to the public.

Some CADs are having Webx meetings.

Fair enough. Was asking since the protest deadline is coming up, HCAD is allowing you to protest via informal / ARB, but have provided no guidance to how that will work. Curious if they are doing video conference or phone calls. Would prefer to do informal over isettle but hard to chose without any details on the informal process.

Just following up from my original post where HCAD increased market value by 14%. Got my iSettle back this morning and they agreed with my assessment which was equal to the 2019 market value so no change this year. Basically went from 14% increase to 0%.

What kind of supporting documents did you provide?

jbryan10 said:

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I actually ended up a bit dissatisfied with Jullably a couple years ago. It was advertised as an "Excellent" case for whatever their valuation was, but when I bought the data they only had 2 recent sales comps and I found out at the informal that one of them was marked by HCAD as not being valid for comparisons for whatever reason. Thankfully I was still able to reduce it, but not by nearly as much as their "Excellent" case value.

I just started building my own case after that experience. In fact for this year, I built a nice little spreadsheet tool for myself to pull in recent sales comps from my realtor buddy and the HCAD public data (which took forever for me to wrap my head around) for a uniform/equal comparison. I was almost excited about bringing that in to the informal/formal to argue my case, especially if I needed to go to the formal to argue uniform/equal. I would have argued to take off another $5k off what they ultimately offered based on the 98 other houses in my neighborhood within 10% of my sqft.

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Thanks for that info. I entered my address into Julbally and got the note back they didn't have enough data for my address.

I'm in a unique situation as HCAD raised the market value by 50% on a house we bought in March. It's still quite a bit under what we paid.

I've pulled the HCAD and HAR comps but I don't have a slam dunk on getting it reduced.

I found a guy that does protests for 35% so may use him just for this year. If I can get it back down to anywhere near 2019 valuation I'll be super happy.

Recent sales comps from Zillow. But I basically used the same strategy as I did last year due to the location of my house which is just west of the Shepherd/Durham corridor. HCAD always has some comps from the east side which inflate the value. I found 3 or 4 comps from the west and east, and argued that the recent sales from the west side should drive my home value.

March of this year?

What do you think triggered HCAD to jack it up so much before it changed hands?

Was it a flip?

Did you get actual sales prices or list prices from Zillow?

All I did was pull up Zillow, set a filter range for bedrooms, baths, and sq footage that is similar to my house, and then changed the Zillow filter to "Sold" in my zip code. I'm not sure if those numbers are pulled directly from MLS but I don't have access so I just used the numbers Zillow provided.

I calculated an average price per sqft based on the comps I found (both east and west of Shepherd) and determined the estimated vale of my home by calculating that average ppsqft by my total sqft.

Got my settle offer back from HCAD today as well. I'm in 77008 and the appraised value was 8% higher than last year. I asked for 9% and they gave me exactly that. All I did was upload similar properties from HAR showing list prices this year. Very easy.

Lupac said:

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Got my settle offer back from HCAD today as well. I'm in 77008 and the appraised value was 8% higher than last year. I asked for 9% and they gave me exactly that. All I did was upload similar properties from HAR showing list prices this year. Very easy.

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Exact same for me. The Timbergrove equation must be spot on.

12thAngryMan said:

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I filed my iProtest a few weeks ago and and got an email this week from HCAD offering an appraised and market value below what I had prior to any increases.

Prior year appraisal = x;
Current year appraisal from HCAD = x + 25,000;
Email offer from HCAD = x - 10,000 (both market and appraised)

I think what they offered in the email was in the neighborhood of the preliminary estimate Jubally calculated. Don't know if I left money on the table or not, but I'm going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Seems like HCAD is ready to make some deals.

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Somewhat similar to poster above (thank you for the helpful info), I filed my iProtest last week, did not select iSettle, but did offer my opinion of value with no backup info attached. Received an email this week that HCAD accepted my opinion of value.

Prior year appraisal = X
Current year HCAD appraisal = X + 22,000
Jubally estimate = X +3,000
My proposed/HCAD accepted appraisal = X + 1,000

HCAD came at me aggressive this year. With the comp sales evidence from Jubally, I came back REAL aggressive in my protest.

Previous year valuation - X
Current HCAD valuation - X + 11%
Jubally estimate - X - 8%

We will see if they give me an offer or force me to do an informal protest. Not sure what value I would be happy with, which is why I prefer informal where I can gauge how negotiable they are feeling.