Homeowners: The official "b**** about your property appraisal" thread

Shall I walk downstairs and kick their collective asses for you?

 

You should feel lucky, my sister's house in Austin has gone up over 100K in the last 3 years.

 

Mine went way down this year. I think that's happening all over Austin. We were kinda scared because we just sold it for a lot more than they valued it.

 

I don't know about Texas City, but in Houston, one of the ratings is curb appeal. A completely subjective measure of how nice your house and yard looks.

Maybe you should consider putting an old refrigerator on your porch.

 

Yeah, my townhome appraisel jump drastically this year also, from 110 to 136

I don't know if I should protest or not. I don't plan on staying in the townhome for more than two more years, and during the last 6 months, 7 units were sold at an average price of 138. I know market value often doesn't relate to appraisel value, but I don't want my appraisel to be too low by the time I sell.

I don't know much about real estate at all, so I may be way off base.

 

We bought the house in January...but my appraised value for 2003 is about $14,400 higher than it was in 2002.

 

I guess I got lucky. My house appraised at the exact same amount that it did last year. Considering the fact that I live in a brand new master planned community with a golf course, I fully expected the max 10% increase.

I am sure they will get me next year though.



Behad,

I agree with HP. Throw an old fridge on the front lawn along with an old car. In fact, I would ask some other members of the BBS to come to your house and do some loitering when the appraisal guy is there.

 

Behad, you got off easy. When we got our house in 1996, it was appraised at 92,000 (we paid 90,000). It is now appraised at $166,000. It's gone up the maximum allowable amount every year and, as far as we can tell, is the highest on our block. Needless to say, I'm in the midst of compiling an extensive protest against this.

 

Anybody ever have any success protesting? If so how did you go about it?

 

B,

Do you have a friend who is a realtor? If so, they can do a CMA for you (comparative market analysis) to see if the county is right with their appraisal. If you don't, I would be more than happy to have my wife do one for you.

Also, you might want to email Chance. I know he is a real estate appraiser.

 

ours went way up! if we could get what our house is appraised at, we would be SO outta there... protest is due.

 

Well, I've never owned a home before, so I'm fully prepared for the flame job after my upcoming stupid question....

I thought that a high appraisal value was a GOOD thing?!

 

When you buy a house, you can submit your sales price as evidence of its true market value, can't you? Mine is appraised at 179K but we bought it for 173K.

Does anyone know if there is a specific time to file a protest?

 

When you are selling your house, yes. When it comes to property taxes, no.

Example: If my house is appraised @ $200,000 and the total tax rate (school, MUD and county) is 3%, then I owe $6,000 in taxes. If it only appraises @ $180,000, then I owe $5,400 in taxes.

When it comes to seeling your house, people don't go by what the county appraises it at because it doesn't take into consideration subjective factors like upgrades and whatnot. The county actually appraised my house at about 10% less than what it would sell for on the market.

Conclusion: When appraising to sell, you want it to be high. When appraising for tax purposes, you want to be as low as possible.

 

It can be. However, the higher the appraisal, the more tax you pay. This can be very annoying, especially if appraisal value is nowhere near market value. Sometime I think the county increases appraisal value just to make money.