Will protesting your property taxes affect the resale of your home?

Are you considering selling your house? Are you thinking, “I’m interested in reducing my property taxes, but I’m about to sell my house. I’m concerned that if I protest, it will reduce my market value and reduce the selling price for my house.”

First, I would tell you that the sales price or market value of your home and the assessed tax value have very little to do with each other. Think about when you bought your house. What was the process you went through? Were you focused on the sales price of the houses, making offers, looking at houses that had already sold, and basically testing the market? Or, were you focused on the assessed tax values?

Second, I would ask you to consider the following: Imagine that a buyer is looking at two identical houses, each worth about $300,000, but the property taxes on one is $12,000 and the property taxes on the other one is $6,000. The big factor is that the assessed property tax is high on one and low on the other. Wouldn’t a buyer rather have a lower assessed tax value, which would give them a lower monthly payment? Having a lower assessed tax value could make your house more attractive to potential buyers.

Please file a protest. You can do it electronically at most appraisal districts. Protest market value, and unequal appraisal, and request the appraisal district’s hearing evidence package. To find out if you’re fairly taxed, go to cutmytaxes.com. It’s the Texas fairness checker. THAT’S CUTMYTAXES.COM.

The protest deadline is now May 15. This is an important deadline. Whether you hire us, do it yourself, or hire one of our worthy competitors, be sure to get your protest filed. Just don’t take the appraisal district’s guesstimate value. It’s either high or low, and you don’t know which until you get the data and look at it.

To enroll in the Property Tax Protection Program, click here to get started now.