Got my offer this morning and they're meeting what I estimated at. Not sure if I should press my luck or just accept it.

Jackal99 said:

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jaggiemaggie said:

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Got my isettle offer 77096... they dropped $14k so just a little more than 3% higher than last year protested 4/14

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Same zip code here. Going to do this now. What boxes did you check, etc? Just curious if there are any tips I can use for the same area.

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I believe all I checked was:

Reason for Protest

"Value is over market value or otherwise incorrect"

jaggiemaggie said:

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Jackal99 said:

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jaggiemaggie said:

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Got my isettle offer 77096... they dropped $14k so just a little more than 3% higher than last year protested 4/14

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Same zip code here. Going to do this now. What boxes did you check, etc? Just curious if there are any tips I can use for the same area.

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I believe all I checked was:

Reason for Protest

"Value is over market value or otherwise incorrect"

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Thanks. Did you submit any files or anything? If so, any homes in the area? I haven't done this before, so curious what someone else in the same area did.

Thank you Sawemoff. I have my informal Wednesday.

I did not submit anything

jaggiemaggie said:

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I did not submit anything

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Thanks. That's what I wanted to hear. Appreciate your replies.

Submitted my protest back at the end of Apr. Was able to pick 3 sales in my neighborhood using very specific criteria (sqft +/- 300, yoc +/- 3, no pool, matching stories/bed/bath/garage) that gave me a number $19k below their Market and $8k below Appraised. They came back today with an iSettle about $11k higher than my request. Think I am going to reject and go to arbitration. I have one comp that could screw my argument assuming they find it but it's hard to say they will as the reports they attached are full of excess data including sales going all the way back to 2018 and houses 1000 sq ft smaller than mine. They also like to ignore pool vs no pool in comp assessments despite that being a big sales market differentiator.

HCAD took me from 548 Market/Appraised (2020) to 611 Market/603 Appraised. (2021)
Jubally said 539.
HCAD just agreed to 539 via email.
77079

Thanks Jubally!

Did have an actual informal or do isettle?

77079

Initially:
Market up 14%
Appraised up 10%

Did an informal today and now only up 7.4% on both.

My comparable property info was strong IMO but people are paying through the nose in my neighborhood and there wasn't really anything to combat that.

I would love to meet a current or former HCAD employee to pick their brain about what I can utilize in my protest that I am not currently. This was my least successful protest by far.

I didn't do isettle. I filed my protest online and was waiting for my informal date. They just emailed me this:

Dear Property Owner:

You recently filed a 2021 protest with the Harris County Appraisal Review Board on account xxxxxxx. After an analysis of your protest and the appraisal district's information, the Harris County Appraisal District would like to propose that the 2021 market value of your property be changed as follows:

Market
Appraised*
Old Value
$611,037
$602,985
New Value
$539,500
$539,500

If you approve of this proposal, simply reply to this email stating that you agree. If you approve the agreement, we will adjust our records as needed so that the lower of the two amounts is used in calculating the value that the various taxing jurisdictions in Harris County will apply to the 2021 tax rates, which will be adopted by their elected officials this fall, and your settlement will be entered so there will be no need for you to appear for a hearing. You will receive electronic confirmation of your approval of the New Value within 5-7 business days.
If you do not approve and would like to continue with the protest process, you can ignore this email and your protest will continue as normal: it will be scheduled for an informal meeting with an appraiser (if it hasn't been already).
Please note that neither the appraiser at the informal meeting nor the Appraisal Review Board are bound by the proposed value in this email. This offer is valid up until the day prior to your scheduled formal hearing date.
* By law, taxes for residence homesteads must be based on the LOWER of market value or appraised value, as adjusted by this agreement.
Regards,

Stephen Atchison
Associate Chief Appraiser, Residential
Harris County Appraisal District

Did you submit your jubally pack with your protest?

I have not in the past but wonder if it would be giving away too much information and allow the appraiser to prepare a counter prior to my informal hearing, this leaving a less favorable compromise.

I did not submit the packet from jubally.
Just their suggested value which is what HCAD agreed to.

Chaca said:

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I did not submit the packet from jubally.
Just their suggested value which is what HCAD agreed to.

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That's isettle. Your property fit in their algorithm and sent you an offer. Nothing you put on the protest did anything to get you your value.

aTm_bomb said:

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Did you submit your jubally pack with your protest?

I have not in the past but wonder if it would be giving away too much information and allow the appraiser to prepare a counter prior to my informal hearing, this leaving a less favorable compromise.

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We discussed this a few pages back - when I filed this year, I did not see any way to attach anything. All I could submit was text in a box that was character-limited. There may have been an exception if you had a settlement statement. Maybe I completely missed something, but I've protested before, and the system seemed different this year.

It may be isettle but I did not check isettle as jubally said not to.
I just got lucky I guess. They could obviously sense my negotiating prowess.

It's not isettle. I got a similar offer last year prior to going to informal. Isettle is in lieu of an informal. If you don't like like the isettle offer, you go straight to the ARB.

TAM85, how did it go?

rilloaggie said:

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77077, market and appraised both up 9%. Land value static, all the increase was on the dwelling.

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iFiled a protest and they have actually lowered the appraised value by ~1%.

They knocked off about 1/3 of the increase over last year's number and would not agree to more. I was asking for another 20% as a compromise, but no dice.

I did better with iSettle last year. Although they may just be more stubborn for 2021 with cover being over.

Got my iSettle offer today.

Previous actual appraisal last year was $278,xxx. Did some good improvement$ on the back patio in Summer/Fall 2020.

2021
HCAD added 10% PLUS improvement costs so market and appraisal value up to $332,xxx.

iSettle offer $292,xxx.

Got my Isettle offer today after submitting last week.

HCAD Appraised at $508K
Jubally said $487K
I cherry picked comps from Jubally's report and submitted like it did the homework myself at $470K.
I Settle offer was $478K

Accepted and ran.

Yall had more luck than me. Offer was only a 10k reduction which is still 10k more than my 10% cap. Going to informal.

Aggie71013 said:

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Yall had more luck than me. Offer was only a 10k reduction which is still 10k more than my 10% cap. Going to informal.

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Did you do any improvements on the property last year? Any pulled permits for remodels or construction. If you did, that's one reason it would exceed the 10% cap. At least that's what got me.

Got my email counteroffer just now. They came down over $50K. I submitted three of the properties Jubally found for comparative sales when I did my online protest (not iSettle).

Nope. All I've done since I moved in is interior paint, some new gutters, and a drain system.

77096 here. I did the iFile thing on 5/17, and just got an email back from them. Last year's appraised value was $276,700, and this year's appraised and market value was bumped up to $304,000. I entered $280,000 on iFile, and their email offer is for that exact amount for appraised and market. Yeah...I'll take that. I didn't submit any documents or anything, but they have six or seven files of area transactions in the "hearing evidence" section.

I'm sitting here in shock, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

77096 also. Submitted my protest for market value of $386k, up from $315k. Received an offer for $371k. Jubally claims $318k with sales comps.

Eff that noise, I'll see you in court!

aTm_bomb said:

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77096 also. Submitted my protest for market value of $386k, up from $315k. Received an offer for $371k. Jubally claims $318k with sales comps.

Eff that noise, I'll see you in court!

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how big is your place?

2212 on an 11000 sqft lot.

Last year was a generous year, got them down from $375k to the $315k so hoping to mitigate this year.

I would question the Jubally comps unless you have a teardown on Bellfort

One on bellfort, one in willowbend!

Don't need to get it all the way down but definitely somewhere in the middle. 3 others comps are total renovations that adjust down favorably. Had good luck in the past so I'll take my chances.

Good luck!

Chaca - I got the exact same letter yesterday. they agreed to the value I requested without any fight. Took it and ran.

I had requested an in person meeting for informal. I used my Jubally recommendation based on market value comps, rounded down to the nearest $5000 and submitted that value with no back up. I was pretty surprised when I got the email saying they accepted my proposed value. I can only guess they are slammed with protests this year and are granting anything that is is even in remotely based on real comps. I got them to drop my assessed by 8% (6.5% drop in taxable) from what they originally assed me at.