poconnor

We pose this question to our esteemed readers: HAS THE APPRAISAL REVIEW BOARD (ARB) IN HARRIS COUNTY LOST ITS MIND? There have been concerns for 25 years surrounding bias at the Appraisal Review Board, but they truly set a new low this week. WHY DO WE THINK THAT? After a week of disaster re-appraisal hearings, ARB board members have made it clear that they’ve taken a biased approach when evaluating properties that were impacted by Hurricane Harvey. In the hearings I sat in, ARB members essentially told us (property owners) not to bother presenting evidence because they’re not going to consider it. Even though the appraisal district has not done a legitimate estimate of market value as required by the tax code! They also have no evidence! They’re just going to rubber-stamp whatever Harris County Appraisal District is requesting, file after file after file. Time after time. WHAT CAN YOU DO? Contact Harris County Appraisal District and let them know this is no...

Texas law  requires  appraisal districts to value property at market value on January 1. To value property, one must understand its condition and the factors that influence market value, including flooding.  Many appraisal districts are not making an effort to determine which property flooded. Despite almost  $200 billion worth of damage  estimated by governmental sources, governmental sources valuing property (appraisal districts) have only identified about $25 billion worth of property damaged by Harvey. 

For the first time in  almost   40 years , the deadline in Texas to render personal property and to file a protest has CHANGED with little notice to taxpayers. The OLD deadline to file a property tax protest in Texas  was  May 31st. The deadline to render personal property  was  April 15th. That is a 15-day change in the deadline! A few weeks ago I was speaking at a luncheon on property taxes to real estate industry professionals. I decided to take a quick poll and ask the audience: “HOW MANY OF YOU KNOW ABOUT THE PROTEST DEADLINE CHANGES THIS YEAR?” Do you know how many people raised their hand?? ZERO. I thought: “How is this possible? Out of 80 real estate professionals, none of them knew there was a change in the deadline to protest?” But that was the case. And I imagine that is the case among thousands of property owners across Texas. I even took a look at the top 100 county appraisal district’s websites in Texas and found that un...

Mike Collier – democratic candidate for lieutenant governor opens up about the two policies that made the property taxes in Texas to fall into crisis. Texas is a wealthy state, and the government is not wasting any money, but still property taxes are so high. mike Collier explains why, 1. Equal and Uniform law Legislature of Texas has passed an Equal and Uniform law in 1997, in which the property owners can fight against the appraisal district if they can show that the comparable property of them is appraised at lower values than their own. This sounds good and logical as a concept, but this has left an unintended loophole to the owners with large, industrial and commercial properties. The theme is, if one owns a complex asset and talented lawyers, then it is really not needed to pay the fair amount of taxes to the government of Texas. Mike Collier says closing the loophole is a chief element of his agenda on tax reform, as a lieutenant governor. 2. T...

The real estate market of Houston has beaten the existing sales record, even after the devastating effects of Harvey. Damage caused by Harvey is substantially high, but the Houston housing market did not lose its steam. The housing market has recorded a significant increase of 3.5 percent compared to the last year sales. This is totally unexpected after the upsetting effects of Harvey. Many are still trying to fix the damages and no Houston realtor has expected the massive rebound. The whole Texas has not seen this kind of rebound in the past decades. Looking on the sales record of Houston housing market, buyers had closed nearly on 79150 single family homes around Houston, Texas; representing almost $23 billion as per the report provided by the Houston Realtors. This increase had inflated the median price by 3.8 percent to $229,900. This is the first time for the Houston housing market to break the records after such a damaging natural calamity. In the Houston real estate market...

Fresh out of Harvard Business School in the early 1980s, Pat O’Connor came back to Houston to work with his father as a  commercial real estate  broker. But the self-described technology geek quickly realized a sales job wasn’t for him. Having noticed many of the names atop the Fortune 500 list were in publishing, O’Connor shifted his focus from selling apartments to investors – to tracking down data for them instead. Today, Houston-based O’Connor & Associates provides real estate research and data, appraisals, property tax appeals and cost segregation services to real estate professionals and consumers. Revenue in 2016 is expected to be upward of $20 million, mostly from the property tax appeals business. O’Connor lately has been spending much of his time building up the data side of the business, a company called Enriched Data, which he hopes one day could help save the country from another financial collapse. For example, it would give more data about residentia...

Texas property taxesare insignificant to some and can be extremely burdensome for others.Texas has one of the  highest average property tax rates  in the country, with only thirteen states levying higher property taxes. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average American household spends $2,149 on property taxes for their homes and residents of the 27 states spends $402 for their vehicle property taxes each year. Property taxes paid directly or indirectly cause an impact on the rent we pay as well as the finance of state and local governments. WalletHub analyzed the 50 states and the Districts of Columbia in terms of vehicle and real estate property taxes. Analysts then compare the public idea and the data on the real structure of tax systems in all 50 states. SURVEY ANALYSIS PROCEDURES: Keeping in mind the end goal to decide the states with the lowest property taxes and highest property taxes by county, WalletHub’s analysts compared the 50 states and the Distric...