heightsfan Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 Good Afternoon,hope your week goes well! With so much revitalization, new construction, and higher end homes being built and sold did the Heights experience decrease by HCAD standards? If you decide to protest will HCAD come evaluate your home or property and can they determine your property value should actually be higher? If you decide to protest HCAD does your home have to be current with all permits for minor remodeling ? What is HCAD looking for when they come to evaluate on your property the exterior of home , your street , any remodeling you have done , or if your area is growing ?Thank You Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cottonmather0 Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 Good Afternoon,hope your week goes well! With so much revitalization, new construction, and higher end homes being built and sold did the Heights experience decrease by HCAD standards? If you decide to protest will HCAD come evaluate your home or property and can they determine your property value should actually be higher? If you decide to protest HCAD does your home have to be current with all permits for minor remodeling ? What is HCAD looking for when they come to evaluate on your property the exterior of home , your street , any remodeling you have done , or if your area is growing ?Thank YouHCAD won't come to your house just because you've protested. They'll come at other times during the year and take pictures and measurements (if you let them) and then use that information and compare it to other houses that sold during the year in your neighborhood to justify their assessment of your house. It's up to you to provide your own evidence of how your house might compare, either to their comparables or to others that you think are more similar. The whole process is about comparing your house to houses that have sold in your neighborhood and then applying those sales prices to your own house based on the comparison. They won't usually raise your assessment in the current year, although technically they can.Permits don't have to be complete - they'll send someone out at some point to evaluate the percentage of the work that is/was complete Jan 1 and then they'll take that value times the cost of your improvements and add that to your assessment before the improvements. Then the next year, assuming your permit is closed, they'll add the rest.HCAD looks at the square footage of the house, the types and value of improvements that they know about, and the appearance of the exterior quality and uses that information to make its comparisons to other properties. The meat of the game is their knowledge of your improvements: many times they will guess high and make you prove that your house is not as nice as they say it is. Similarly, as someone else in this thread has mentioned, there are plenty of improvement that they don't know about, but that they know they don't know about, so they are rather aggressive at trying to get proof in order to raise assessments. This is why the HCAD guy showed up at my house earlier this month after my $2000 storm repair permit was closed - he didn't care about the storm work, he used that as an excuse to come over and look around to make sure I wasn't hiding more expensive improvements within that permit that would otherwise raise the tax assessment of my house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urbannomad Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 - I don't know about the Heights as a whole, but that was an area that did see some of the increases; however, many people in the Heights area saw reductions as well (myself included). It really all depends on the home. Also if someone was at a really low, capped value then they are probably still being raised toward the market value. Which is probably pretty common with some of the older homes on large lots in the heights.- HCAD does mass appraisal so they will not come visit and appraisal your property in that since. They will provide you with the data (sales) they used to arrive at your value before your protest date. Then the burden of proof is on you to show that there are lower, more comparable sales, or you are appraised unequally compared to the comps, or that there are factors that negatively influence your value that does not affect the comps (mold, foundation, bad roof, traffic, backs commercial, etc)- In rare cases HCAD could determine your value should be higher, but in an informal hearing you can just reject the value and leave it where it is. However, if you appeal your value to the ARB their decision is binding regardless of that they do with your value (up or down). - You don't have to be current on your permits; but if you had improvements done without getting a permit, then it's likely HCAD never knew about them, and therefore did not include them in your value. So if you did something big like a remodel or added a pool, then your value could go up as a result when they find out.- HCAD will not come to your house, you will need to bring pictures and other related documentation to your protest hearing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musicman Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 - In rare cases HCAD could determine your value should be higher, but in an informal hearing you can just reject the value and leave it where it is.This is not correct. The account has to be settled each year. If you don't like the value at the informal hearing, your only recourse is to go to the board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urbannomad Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 This is not correct. The account has to be settled each year. If you don't like the value at the informal hearing, your only recourse is to go to the board.While that may be true in a literal since, I don't think it's exactly right. For instance if you don't agree with what comes out of an informal then you are scheduled for a formal hearing that is not bound by anything that occured in the informal. However, if you fail to appear or show up late for the formal then you forfeit your protest. That said, I believe in the informal the appraiser is just trying to justify the value and is open to lowering it, but not looking to raise it, so I do not know how likely, if at all, the whole raised value scenario would be. Though I know people do (rarely) protest to have their value raised so who knows?Bottom line is I wouldn't sweat it. The trick is if they lower it in the informal do you settle with that, or do you roll the dice and try to get the ARB to lower it even more? Even then though, I would imagine the ARB rarely decides to raise a value that the appraiser has lowered in an informal but I have no experience with that so I couldn't say for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heightsfan Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Good Evening This is great feedback ! What might be some examples of factors that negatively influence value that does not affect the comps ? If your home is located near a busy street or high traffic ? Maybe located near a restaurant or bar ? You dont have drains only ditch ? Most of the houses on your block need some exterior upgrades ? Also what happens if one or two homes on your block sells really high or a house on your block is appraised really high ? Thank You Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cottonmather0 Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Good Evening This is great feedback ! What might be some examples of factors that negatively influence value that does not affect the comps ? If your home is located near a busy street or high traffic ? Maybe located near a restaurant or bar ? You dont have drains only ditch ? Most of the houses on your block need some exterior upgrades ? Also what happens if one or two homes on your block sells really high or a house on your block is appraised really high ? Thank YouWell, the point is that you need to find your own comparable sales within the HCAD database that you think are closer in description (and value) to your own house and then go make your case. If your house is on a busy street or near a bar or restaurant, then the best thing you can do is find another house that was in a similar location and sold for less that HCAD says your house is worth. Once you start wandering into those types of subjective factors like that though, HCAD is less likely to accept your argument.EDIT: spellcheck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musicman Posted March 25, 2009 Share Posted March 25, 2009 If your home is located near a busy street or high traffic ? Maybe located near a restaurant or bar ?Traffic is definitely a good reason that works.You dont have drains only ditch ?i would say no. Most of the houses on your block need some exterior upgrades ?they'd give you a lower rating if the exterior is poor. rotted siding, etc has worked for me.Also what happens if one or two homes on your block sells really high or a house on your block is appraised really high ?they usually consider how this is with respect to the others so yours shouldn't be affected. if there are quite a bit in the neighborhood as a whole, that could influence overall values from what i've experienced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cumby Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 First of all, if you just bought the property last year, they are stuck with your purchase price at least the first year and I swear I was told that was good for two years. I'm happy about that, having just purchased.Our last house we battled it every year. Every time we went in, we got some relief so it is worth a shot. DH asked them the last time we were in front of the board what would be most helpful in a hearing, and basically they said that if there are things you are saying bring down your value, bring LOTS of pics.Oh, and if you have a realtor friend, they are very helpful when you are trying to pull comps =) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betty J. Posted June 4, 2009 Share Posted June 4, 2009 First of all, remember that the district is only going to consider market values and not the assessed or appraised value. They can't by state law. Yes, the 14% is probabally correct for market values. The homestead cap protects you by state law. If you purchased a home for 200k one year and then others in the same neighborhood purchased homes with the same characteristics decided they were to pay 300k the next year...the district has to assume that the value will be higher due to sales in your area. The homestead cap would only give you a 10% jump from one year to the next. So, even if the true market transactions show this increase to happen, the homestead protects you for your taxable, or appraised value. Remember that you can protest, but use the IFile when you receive your noticed value two weeks prior to your informal hearing. Use the ISettle program as well. This is the third largest appraisal district in the United States. They are the first to have this program to use to your advantage. You don't have to protest yearly unless you have serious conditions to your home that prevent the market value to be overstated...like foundation issues, roof caving in, or things like that. There is a cap on annual increases in appraisal value, isn't there? I thought I heard something in the 10% range. I just bought the property last year so all the past tax info is pulled from HCAD:In 2002, the appraised value was increased by 2.83%.2003, 9.98%2004, 2.38%2005, 0%2006, 10%2007, 13.48% <<We are currently awaiting approval of our homestead exemption. Could this be why they can increase our total value by over 10%?Also the letter from HCAD states that "the more active areas of the county have increased as much as 14.5% over last year." Isn't this statement counter to the cap?What am I missing? Should I protest this? The difference between 10% and 13.48% is about $9k that I will end up being taxed on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
missjanel Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 I had my formal hearing today. I'm not happy with the reduction given by the ARB so I will be going to arbitration, but I was able to answer my own question. The ARB can and will make adjustments to land value. My understanding is that I will have to pay $500 to go to arbitration but will get back $450 if they find in my favor. Has anyone done this before?Mine went up over 20%, most of which was based on land value. Well in excess of what I could actually sell for if the home were listed. Past experience shows that the ARB will only make adjustments to the value of the structure and will not make any adjustments to the value of the land. Does anyone have any experience with going to the appeals board and getting the land value adjusted in line with actual market value? I'm willing to pay the cost for arbitration if the appeals board would actually make adjustments to the land value. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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