I’ve been protesting property tax values with Travis County for 30 years. Not only for myself, but back in the 1990s, into the 2000s for my property management and real estate clients as well. And also assisting by providing market information to clients and others who ask for help from our Free CMA page, which I think I first put up in 2005.
For 2023, TCAD valued a property I owned in Southwest Austin in Legend Oaks neighborhood at $677k. This was excessively high, by more than $100k, but I was unsuccessful at the ARB Hearing (Arbitration Review Board), despite presenting clear objective data. They did lower it to $651k though, still about $100k too high.
So for the first time ever, I filed for a Binding Arbitration hearing, paid the $500 deposit, and hired an appraiser to value the property for me as of Jan 1, 2023. TCAD generally accepts Settlement Statements as evidence, and I had been told by a member of a hearing panel for a commercial property I had successfully appealed that a formal appraisal was similarly accepted, and is in fact “good as gold” as far as evidence goes. So I relied upon that.
The appraiser valued the home at $585k, still too high, but I understood why. In a declining market such as 2023, coming off a peak in 2022, the “sold averages” will lag being current market values. We adjust for this as Realtors when pricing a property for sale (skate to where the puck will be, so to speak), but appraisers don’t, and neither does the county appraisal district.
So for my appeal, I decided to dig into the 2023 Sold data even further. I looked at homes that actually sold in my Legend Oaks neighborhood and compared those sold prices to the 2023 appraised value given by Travis County. The results stunned even me.
Summary of my data:
29 – Total number of Sold homes in Legend Oaks 2023
6 – Total of the 29 that were NOT over-appraised (green).
3 – Over-appraised but later protested down to exact sold price (yellow)
20 – Over-appraised unadjusted properties (red)
Average of the 20 over-appraised properties is $83K.
Average Percentage of market value of over-appraised properties is 13.64%
My assertion was that if my home in Legend Oaks had actually sold in 2023, it would have been one of the 5 (the 6th) in the data, that had in fact been over-valued by more than $100k.
The TCAD rep dismissed and tried to wave away this data. Defending his comps in a combative way and making ridiculous assertions that would make any data scientist bellow in laughter. He rejected the appraisal, saying it wasn’t valid because the appraiser must’ve been biased since I hired him.
The Arbitrator did lower the value to $625k, still $40k above the appraisal, and $75k above the $550k I was asserting.
The house actually sold for $534k in April 2024, further supporting my case indirectly. But none of this mattered.
Going forward I have partnered with Ownwell for my personal appraisal protests and those of my clients who do not have the time or energy to self-protest. The system is broken, and TCAD is the definition of entrenched bureaucratic numbsculls who are not there to serve the public or the stated mission, but to batle against the public for reasons I still don’t fully understand.
Wow, welcome back to posting! Appreciate your posted. I feel like this is not a TCAD problem but an entire state of Texas issue where appraisal districts have no penalties from over-appraising. I feel like if Texas got sales data from realtors in real time and removed the human aspect this would be better. thoughts?
Thanks. It has been a while but I’ve decided to start writing again. Thanks for your comment.