How to Avoid Paying Higher Taxes on Your Houston Home

There are many great Houston area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at 832-428-6453 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Tax season is here, and the biggest questions we’ve received lately have to do with protesting your taxes. If you’ve seen what I’ve seen, property tax assessments in the Houston area have gone up again. My short answer? Yes, you should protest your property taxes! I do every year because I want to keep my bases low.

There are a few options out there for people who want to protest their taxes. First, you can do it on your own, which means you’re going to go, sit down with HCAD, and try to convince them why your property taxes are too high. I don’t have the time to do this, so I usually hire a third party to do it for me. I have had some mixed success going that route, but I feel it’s worth it.

Although we’re in a normalizing market, property taxes have continued to go up. If you have a homesteaded property, they can go up no more than 10% plus any improvements you’ve made. In some cases, improvements to your home can increase your tax burden substantially. Even if you haven’t made improvements, these higher assessments will cost more and more money as the years go by.

In short, we highly recommend that everyone contests their property taxes, especially if you have the time. If you’re interested in a third party to protest your taxes on your behalf, I would be happy to put you in touch with a great company I use. They typically charge 50% of what they end up saving you; if they don’t save you any money, you don’t have to pay them anything, so it’s not a bad deal.

If you have questions about this or any other topic, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We would love to hear from you soon!

Don’t Miss this Expert Analysis of Houston Real Estate

There are many great Houston area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here for a FREE Home Price Evaluation so you know what buyers will pay for your home in today's market. You may also call me at 832-428-6453 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

So far in 2016 the market has been looking quite hot. This is difficult for me to say, though, because we have just come off two white-hot years in this market.

One thing to keep in mind is that Houston functions like a group of cities, and that there are many micro-markets that will be performing differently than other parts of the city. For example, there has been a slowdown in the luxury markets, but this only seems to be happening in the oil-driven areas.

The market that I’m seeing right now is similar to the market that we saw last year with lots of growth and appreciation. More homes have come onto the market and inventory has increased. This should help to stabilize prices in the market, because for a while they were increasing at unsustainable rates. Another trend I’m seeing is that the strongest markets in Houston are the most diversified, but they also have the least amount of inventory.

My word of advice to home sellers is to price with the current market trends. Don’t look back six months ago, because even that is too long ago. Buyers are savvy and know when they are getting a good deal or not.

If you have any questions, don’t be afraid to ask me!

Don and Jennifer Loved That We Never Gave Up!

Tell us about your experience working with the Mike Gray Home Selling Team?

We had wonderful results working with Mike. He helped us through every stage of selling our home. He was knowledgeable and resposive and always provided great feedback during our discussions. After we finally found the home that was perfect for us, and made a concerted effort to negotiate a deal, we almost walked away. We came to an agreement with the seller only to realize there was a significant misunderstanding on the seller's part. We didn't have an agreement and we didn't expect to reach one. Mike didn't give up though. He followed up with a seller independently and he pushed them to reach an agreement with terms that we could all accept. It was completely unexpected when we heard from Mike that he had done that and that we were ready to move forward with buying our home.

To contact Mike Gray, call 832-428-6453 or email Mike@homesfromhouston.com.