Diggity said:

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Double

got my iSettle offer just now. They agreed with my estimated value.

Makes me think I came in too high!

Nice. What sort of documents did you provide, if any?

I'm in westbury also. How much did they come off?

came down a little over 5%.

I went over the strategy I use a bit earlier in this thread. I typically argue unequal appraisal and use similarly graded comps .

Diggity said:

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got my iSettle offer just now. They agreed with my estimated value.

Makes me think I came in too high!

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Got my email saying they couldn't give me another offer and I needed to do a meeting.

Not happy with my isettle offer at all. They increased my value from $425k to $524k. Protested using a sales comp from across the street. Bigger house that sold last year for $460k. When you do a price per sq ft conversion, mine should be right around $425k. So I asked for that.

They offered $470,812.

Haven't logged in to see the "evidence", yet. This is in 77389.

Edited to add: just opened one of the sales comp reports. It includes comps from Carlton Woods Creekside, which is the 6000k+ sq ft, gated, custom build, country club section of my subdivision, where some of the homes are on 1+ acre and they all have a pool.

The reports include sales going back to 2020. Hell, if I use that info, my value should be even lower than what I asked for!

Not sure what actual sales they used to determine my value. This makes no sense.

If you reject isettle and go to a hearing, can you end up with a worse offer than the isettle?

Absolutely yes

Sazerac said:

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Absolutely yes

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True, but I'm not sure I know anyone that's had this happen.

Not sure why that imoji showed up.

Happened to me last year

This is the solution.

Gcad raised my house 18% and my rental 25% really need that rental to come down. Both will be rentals next go round as well. I hate this system.

Hcad raised our home 23 percent. I was successful with I settle last year using 2021 sold home price comparisons on our street. I happened to know the owners and sold prices.

Several more homes sold on our street in 2022 and I need to find the sold prices. Anybody know where this info is posted?

That sucks.

You had your work cut out for you though.

Arguing no increase in this marker is generally a losing battle.

Diggity said:

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That sucks.

You had your work cut out for you though.

Arguing no increase in this marker is generally a losing battle.

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I would have proposed/accepted an increase if that's what the comps would have indicated.

The increased my value from $337k to $425k last year (after I protested the original $525k assessment), so it's not like they aren't getting their pound of flesh.

And I was prepared to accept a number higher than $425k. But $470k is unacceptable. And I think when I look at their reports and throw out the houses that are way bigger than mine and the sales with pools, the numbers will be in my favor. I'm just not confident the board will agree.

When I filed my protest, I asked for a three person virtual hearing if I wasn't satisfied.

I'm also mad that their stupid reports obfuscate what data they ~actually~ used to value my home. Giving me reports with houses that sold for $1,000,000 up to $6,000,000 and sales back to 2020 is useless, and I think intentionally misleading.

Edited to add: I was actually surprised they accepted $425k last year. There were two sales comps on my street, both houses identical to mine. One had a pool ($525k) and the other didn't ($425k). I submitted that as my argument, fully expecting them to offer a value in the middle.

Finally sitting down to dig into the report. Looks like they did time adjusted values on every single house sold last year. Even a house sold on 11/28/2022 had an adjustment of 1.17%.

The house I used as a comp has an adjustment of 12.87% because it sold in February.

So, basically, they are saying that a house that sold for $465,000 on 2/8/2022 would have sold for $524,846 on Jan 1, 2023.

What a crock.

Damn if only I could get those kind of returns in the market.

I'd 100% sell my house to HCAD for what they say it's worth - make that an option and suddenly it all becomes a lot more reasonable

Finally got my values. Up 21% in 096.

House close by is appraised $150k higher than the asking price. Been on the market 9 months and was reduced back in June of last year. Not sure what Hcad is smoking but I want some of it.

HCAD is straight up ignoring the fact that the market has dropped in some places.

I did my BF's protest, too. House across the street went on the market for ~think~ $489k last August (it's early, and I can't remember exactly). Open Door bought it in an off market transaction and then relisted it after doing a few upgrades and repairs.

Didn't sell until last month, and after 10+ price reductions, it finally sold in March for $400k. It's currently appraised at over $450k.

When I reviewed the comp reports HCAD provided for his areas there was a house that sold on Jan 2023 for $395k. HCAD actually time adjusted that price down a few thousand because it sold after Jan 1. When you pull up that tax record on the HCAD website, it's appraised at $460k+.

These reports are eye-opening. I'd bet every house sold in my zip code last year is appraised by at least $50k over the actual sales price.

Nevermind

After digging into the data for our protests, if you haven't protested, yet, I would advise hiring a company to do it for you this year.

I've run across quite a few properties that have somehow gotten their 2023 HCAD value LOWER than what they purchased the home for in 2022.

Based on the iSettle values we were offered, I don't think people are getting these reductions on their own. I think HCAD may be giving preferential treatment to the companies that protest on behalf of homeowners.

Edited to add: and of course HCAD isn't including these updated values in their reports. All you get is the sales price and the "time adjusted" price. If you want to know what comps are actually valued at, you have to go look it up on the HCAD website.

The good news is, accounts do appear to be updating in real time (or close to it). I'm going to base my appeal in part on the fact that one comp for my house that sold in July of last year has been updated to be valued at the sales price. It's a fair value/price per sq ft.

Question for those in the know:

I have the evidence summary for my BF's property.

There are 5 sales transactions in 2022 on the report (out of 16 total in his HCAD area). The report gives the sales price, the time adjusted sales price, and the final adjusted sales price.

None of these values are equal to the actual 2023 market value on the HCAD website. I think a couple of homeowners may have already protested and settled, based on the comparison of the actual value to the sales price and adjusted sales prices.

So, what value are you supposed to use for the comparison? I'm favoring the actual sales price because tends are showing that sales prices decreased and time on market increased for the second half of 2022. So no one's house should be valued for more than what they bought it for.

But what the heck are you supposed to do with the adjusted values? And how do the properties that are appraised at or below the actual sales price factor in?

Sales price = price comp sold for

Adjusted sales price = what they think the sale price would have been if the property that sold exactly matched your property's characteristics

Time adjusted sales price = what they think the adjusted price would have been if that sale occurred on january 1, 2023

The relationships between the HCAD values of those properties are not very meaningful. It is an analysis of 5 "sales" not a comparison of 5 "properties"

However in your evidence there will be a similar page of evidence called the Equity Grid. If the values of those properties change it does change the bottom line indication of their evidence and you should bring up what the current values of those properties are at a board hearing. (HCAD will refuse to deal with anything but noticed values likely when trying yo work it out with you informally, they generally refuse to deal with equity)

Thanks! I just posted on the RE board, too, because I figured no one was reading my posts here any more.

So, the final adjusted price is some kind of comparative estimate based on my BF's house? If so, that makes sense because he has a pool and none of the five sales comps they put in the report have a pool.

I don't have a the same report for my house, and my isettle offer was more insulting than his was. I've already declined mine.

One very good comp to my house has already successfully protested to lower their value to the sales price. If my house were valued at the same $ per sq fit as this comp, I'd be happy. Is this a valid argument for me to make at my hearing? Adjusted values from other protests are fair game if they have settled and are publicly available on the HCAD website, right?

Also, how in the world can HCAD justify valuing a property at $100k over the time adjusted price (more than $100k over the actual sales price, and the house sold at the end of Nov)? I realize I'm an old woman screaming at clouds here, but this one house (that is a comp to mine) is just egregiously over-valued. It sold in Nov for $500k, time admitted value is $505k, and HCAD actually valued it at over $600k! This makes my head want to explode. It's fraud, theft, and morally and ethically bankrupt!

TXTransplant said:

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Thanks! I just posted on the RE board, too, because I figured no one was reading my posts here any more.

So, the final adjusted price is some kind of comparative estimate based on my BF's house? If so, that makes sense because he has a pool and none of the five sales comps they put in the report have a pool.

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Yes. There are sheets in the back of the packets that show all of the adjustments one by one made to each sale. They adjust for construction material differences, size differences, neighborhood difference, level of remodel, grade, condition/desirability/utility, differences in bathroom counts, differences in the land value, differences in extra features values (where the pool woild be accounted for.

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I don't have a the same report for my house, and my isettle offer was more insulting than his was. I've already declined mine.

One very good comp to my house has already successfully protested to lower their value to the sales price. If my house were valued at the same $ per sq fit as this comp, I'd be happy. Is this a valid argument for me to make at my hearing? Adjusted values from other protests are fair game if they have settled and are publicly available on the HCAD website, right?

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Yes, although in an informal setting the district can be difficult to work with regarding such "equal and uniform"arguments and may claim that they can only consider noticed values. A review board should consider all evidence presented to them.

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Also, how in the world can HCAD justify valuing a property at $100k over the time adjusted price (more than $100k over the actual sales price, and the house sold at the end of Nov)? I realize I'm an old woman screaming at clouds here, but this one house (that is a comp to mine) is just egregiously over-valued. It sold in Nov for $500k, time admitted value is $505k, and HCAD actually valued it at over $600k! This makes my head want to explode. It's fraud, theft, and morally and ethically bankrupt!

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They cant justify it, they will end up changing that to the sales price in the blink of an eye if protested. The question is why does their model so far off on that property. I think this year there may be a fundamental flaw in their assumptions (ie that values were rising throughout 2022). If you look at the adjustments they make though, you can see where errors creep in simply because they dont have the manpower to accurately appraise every single house. They dont know the exact physical condition or desirability or even basic things like construction material and quality on every house in the County.

Lets say that theres someone who own the sweetest, nicest crib in your neighborhood, but one year he's able to cobble some misleading photos and a sob story and gets them to lower his grade and condition values to below average for the neighborhood . Then a couple years later he sells his place for the highest price ever. Because his grade and condition are lower than most of the neighborhood, HCAD will use his sale and make the rest of his neighbors even higher (because they have those as better grade and condition) even though they had it wrong, and this house was always the best.

If you're a nosy and/or friendly neighbor type just look up and down your street and then check all your neighbors remodel, grade, and cdu ratings. I bet that mostly there are many that dont make sense and a nice house will have poor ratings or vice versa.

Fair points. But in my 'hood, all of these houses have been built since 2011. So, no extensive remodels or anything like that at this point. The most people have done is put in pools and/or outdoor kitchens. We are all "graded" as condition B. There is no argument to make for unequal appraisal because we were all valued about the same (at least on a sq ft basis) last year, and we were all screwed by the same amount this year (everyone's values were increased by about 25%). We all got hefty increases last year, too.

I just don't understand why the model wouldn't have used the time adjusted sales price. Especially on something that just sold at the end of November. It's just not possible for a house to increase in value from $500k to $600k in 34 days.

I've looked at dozens of recently sold comps in my neighborhood, and they are almost all valued way over the time adjusted sales price. And the earlier in the year the house sold the worse it is because anything that sold in Jan 2022 already had a 14% adjustment to the time adjusted value. Then they piled another $50-$100k on top of that to get the actual 2023 market value.

And of course, we don't know how they even arrived at the actual values that are posted on the website.

This is all such a ridiculous waste of everyone's time - the CAD's time and our time. I've got better things to do than sort through all this data and argue the obvious, but I'm stuck doing it because if not, I'm screwed next year.

I'm kicking myself for not hiring a company to do this. I should have known my luck with isettle would run out this year.

Posting this because it may be helpful to someone:

I did isettle and did not like my offer. To put it in context, my original assessment was $524k. I asked for $425k via isettle. I was offered $473k (declined), and after looking at comps, I have a strong case for $447k.

When I filed my isettle protest, I requested the three person virtual board hearing as my preferred next step, if I didn't like my isettle offer.

I've protested multiple times via isettle before, and I've always accepted the offer, so I wasn't sure what to expect.

I got my hearing notice today. It's at a workable time, although the notice does say that I could have to wait up to 2 hours past my appt time. If the wait exceeds 2 hours, then I can reschedule.

I have the opportunity to upload additional information to support my position. I've used the HCAD reports provided with my isettle offer to build an even stronger argument than what I submitted initially. I've got some spreadsheets and a graph to upload, and I'll type up some written remarks to go with them. All information must be uploaded at least 3 days prior to the hearing date.

I am arguing based on sales comps. The unequal argument won't work, because as I said in the post above, all the houses on my street were equally screwed with an excessively high market value assessment this year.

I have two strong sales comps, a third acceptable comp, and a whole lot of data that shows the $/sq ft sales price in my neighborhood was essentially flat between Jan 2022 and Jan 2023.