2016 Property tax appraisals now online on traviscad.org (Early: condos, house)

[ice10]

I bought a new construction and closed in Dec 2015. The appraisal amount is fine but the year built is showing as 2014. I guess it doesn't matter too much until I go to sell the house. Is that something worth changing now and risk the appraisal amount go up or wait until I have to sell and then get them to change the year built.

[verybadgnome]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

Someone likely pulled your neighbors' sales data and used it for a comp when protesting their own appraisal. In that manner, TCAD gets a lot of actual sales data from people protesting.

I think that is true as they knew exactly what I paid for mine when I went to protest 5 or so years ago.

I've been told the difference is they don't have sources for commercial properties or residential properties sold outside of MLS. Site like R****n have most, but not all, the residential sale info possibly for the same reason.

[gpurcell]

Originally Posted by verybadgnome

Getting crazy around here. There are at least three homes on Holly Street appraised over $1M. They have garage apartments in back but even with the additional air conditioned space facing the alley they aren't over 3600 square feet. Makes me wonder if this will help put a damper on escalating land values once people see this new tax information on MLS listings.

Land speculation in advance of Code NEXT wiping out the existing neighborhood standards, FAR, etc. The land is being valued for much denser construction.

[riaelise]

You'd be surprised with the data they present to you at a protest hearing. To be honest, Travis has always been on the high side. ALWAYS. For the past ten years that we owned our home in Travis County, they were resolute that the house was a certain amount just because it was large. Even when neighborhood sales were soft during the recession they appraised the home for the maximum amount they could. The in person protests were a waste of time. One of the employees basically told me that they are only authorized to lower it by a certain percentage at the informal. After that, you'll have to go before the panel where you'll see that they have a lot of information about your house, more info than you'd think. We hired a company and that was the only time that we saw results. The current owners of our former house will have to deal with a $60k increase from last year. I won't deny that sales in our former neighborhood have been exceptionally brisk (combination of low inventory, location (the area market is pretty hot), and people priced out of Austin who want more space) I don't think it warrants a $60k increase.

Someone in my new neighborhood went to bat against WCAD and managed to get it reduced by half. I don't think that will happen in 2016, because the comps have risen over last year. Houses smaller than ours are only about $10,000 less than what we paid. So I don't think the "our house is overvalued" will not hold water in 2016 but I guess it pays to protest anyway. I wonder if they jack the price up, expecting to give up some $ when you protest.

[MeredithTX]

Our land value doubled this year. That seems steep. Anyone else seeing that kind of jump?

[atxcio]

Originally Posted by MeredithTX

Our land value doubled this year. That seems steep. Anyone else seeing that kind of jump?

Did they also reduce your improvement value by a significant amount? That happened to me a couple of years ago -- they didn't double the land value, but it went up by like 50% and the improvement value went down, so that the total increase was like 20%.

It makes it more difficult to protest your value on condition issues; but I think the main reason they do that is so they can justify sky-high valuations on teardown/rebuilds (where the improvement value will be high).

I take it this is a central part of town?

[MeredithTX]

Originally Posted by atxcio

Did they also reduce your improvement value by a significant amount? That happened to me a couple of years ago -- they didn't double the land value, but it went up by like 50% and the improvement value went down, so that the total increase was like 20%.

It makes it more difficult to protest your value on condition issues; but I think the main reason they do that is so they can justify sky-high valuations on teardown/rebuilds (where the improvement value will be high).

I take it this is a central part of town?

They did not reduce the improvement value, that's up by over 20%. Total increase is 33%. We are SW, not central.

[Trainwreck20]

Originally Posted by MeredithTX

They did not reduce the improvement value, that's up by over 20%. Total increase is 33%. We are SW, not central.

Make sure all the houses around you have the same property value.

[atxcio]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

Make sure all the houses around you have the same property value.

Yep. Search by your street name and see if the rest of the homes had a similar lot price adjustment. If so, it will be difficult to protest.

[LI2Texas]

I am buying a central home that a spec builder bought and oversized lot and is putting a new SF home and 2 condos (AB style). They arent completed yet (almost done) and our new address didn't exist previously. When do they make the tax assessments on these type of properties?

Thanks in advance