Home address: 4414 Frank St
2021 Taxable Value: $138,890
Recent Sales Price: $90,869 – Over-taxed by 53%
Dallas County property investors far too often pay excess property taxes. Protesting the appraisal district’s market value with usually reduce your property taxes. An unequal appraisal appeal is easy to prepare. Just find neighborhood homes with a lower level of assessment (per square foot). Summarize the data in a table. Winning a property tax protest is easy. Getting property owners to appeal is hard. Only 10% of Texan homeowners appeal their property taxes.
Property owners are sometimes reluctant to protest their property taxes because the believe the appeal process is difficult. It is not difficult and 60 to 80% of owners who appeal are successful. Incorrect property data such as grade, effective year built, condition, etc lead to substantial errors in appraisal district values for houses. Tax protests are resolved at the informal hearing since the result is within a “reasonable range of value”. Appraisal is not an exact science and valuations are only an educated opinion of value, not a fact. Property taxes are the largest tax most Texans face. But it is a stealth tax hidden in the mortgage payment, disguising the size of property taxes paid.
