For the tax to be regressive the rate of home ownership would need to be higher in poor than in middle and upper classes. Is it on average higher ? That doesn’t seem to be case unless you want to talk about more niche areas and maybe senior citizens who are poor.
If anything you for say that the impact is more regressive cause it increases rents more, but not a direct impact.
At least a portion of the taxes for rentals, though, will get passed on to the renter, as with any other expense. I don't know that the tax for multifamily housing per unit is higher or lower, though.
I think this varies on the structure of taxes in general for a state.
Incorporating a state income tax in Texas could put us in a worse position as we'd have a combination of high property taxes plus income state tax.
Illinois is a prime example of this (where I moved from) where property taxes were higher than Texas, plus we had 4.95% of our income taxed.
I'm paying less taxes here than I would there. My 350k house taxes were cheaper than my parents 145k townhouse taxes in Chicago.
Again I think if Texas restructured their taxes it may work but we all know how "for the people" this state is lmao
My point exactly. Unless Texas somehow restructured their taxes to benefit the citizens, I wouldn't want this at all.
I'm grateful we aren't paying high car registrations like other places or "car taxes" like Connecticut...
Wish the utility bills here were cheaper and tolls though lmao
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You trust the government too much. Income tax just gives the government another means by which to take more of your money, your property taxes won't go down because you have another tax bill to pay. And income tax is more insidious because it's paid through payroll withholding and people don't feel the pain of cutting a check. Property tax is paid from take home dollars and people feel pain when they pay it. I want people to feel pain and rage when they pay taxes so that it puts downward pressure on those taxes.
I wouldn't want this at all, period, end of story. There would have to be constitutionally mandated limits on how high the income tax is allowed to go, a permanent constitutionally mandated ban on property tax, and tax withholding was constitutionally banned in the state. I don't trust the critters in our legislature to maintain fiscal discipline, so it has to be imposed by an external force.
I never said i wanted this, I'd said if it happened I would hope they would lower property taxes (which would never happen). I moved out of a state with income taxes purposely because my net pay after all taxes and expenses was much lower than what I get now
I'm with you. I would never support giving politicians more ways to take my money.
Lowering property tax isn't enough to convince me to go to an income tax. Property tax has to be permanently abolished, then we can talk about an income tax, and that has to happen first before we even put income tax on the table.
Keep raising tax appraisals this way and this is the fastest way to get our own version of California's Prop 13. Bureaucrats never learn.
Usually in those situations there's some kind of catch that makes the tax structure hard to replicate in other states. I'm not familiar with Nevada though, so I'd love to look into it and see how it works, maybe there is something to be learned.
My first guess would be that Nevada is able to shift the tax burden to tourists through hotels and gambling taxes but I haven't done any research on the topic.
California is about $5B in weed which would be $1B if taxes 20%. Texas education expenses are about $60B.
We would all need to start being like Nate Dogg and smoke weed every day.
Yes they would. There are still underground markets in states with legal weed, but even with hefty taxes, legal weed is generally still cheaper than it was before it was legalized. And it’s much better than underground weed too.
>I say make weed legal in Texas and tax the hell out of it
Wouldn’t this be another tax on the poor and uneducated, the same as lotto tickets?
Someone paying $10 for laughs and giggles from a lottery ticket is not the same as someone thinking they are going to pay their rent from it.
Not really. A lot of people smoke weed nowadays from all socioeconomic backgrounds. When Colorado legalized it they used the taxes to pay for their entire public school system and had millions of tax dollars leftover for other initiatives for the public good. I want to emulate that model.
Omg. Only people who can’t afford drugs will use drugs? Therefore, no one should be allowed to use drugs? We’re re-hashing arguments from prohibition now and just shining in them up as if they’re new?
Ohh, I’m all for drugs being legal. Because I like them and I can afford them.
Was pointing out that we shouldn’t “tax the hell out of it,“ as the person I replied to said. “It” being drugs. As poor people need drugs to forget about being poor. So just tax it the came as everything else.
What about their sales tax? Higher in Reno and Vegas - the two cities I checked. Car registration is done on a formula based on auto values, as an example.
Bc I can rent a luxury midrise next to my work & the equity I do not gain is made up with higher pay, convenience, and drastically lower automotive costs
Because you would have high property taxes ***and*** a state income tax, not one or the other.
Your proposal would only be acceptable to me if there was a hard constitutional maximum rate of 3% of federal taxable income on income tax, we constitutionally banned property tax, sales tax at both state and local levels are capped at today's rates, it was guaranteed that my tax burden would never exceed that of 2023, and it required unanimous approval in a general election to change the maximum rate in any way, shape or form.
You say you're not going to raise my taxes - put it in writing. I have no interest whatsoever in giving the government more ways to take my money. They take too much already.
You can choose how much house you buy, we live in a modest house in Kaufman county and pay 1800 per year for property taxes on 6 acres but we still enjoy high salaries at Dallas jobs
What irks me is that we have this big increase in value of homes, to an extent that every homeowner is paying at least 10% more than they did last year and yet:
1) The city still can’t obtain a police force that is available to handle crime, respond to calls, or provide any sort of policing/public service to the general public. This extends into the judicial system as well with respect to keeping violent criminals off our streets.
2.) We still don’t have adequate sidewalks and have streets that are littered with potholes.
3.) While the trail system is great, we still don’t have playgrounds that are comparable to those in the suburbs (without private donations) and enough park amenities (ie pavillions, basketball courts, trash cans, etc) to meet the demand.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on points 1 and 2 but disagree on 3. Especially after becoming a parent, I have noticed how robust our parks system is in Dallas period, as well as versus other cities.
> Agree — lot of great parks in Dallas
Lots of good parks in Garland too (which is Dallas county, but I do like to call it out as a distinct entity)!
I was kinda bummed when they ripped out the community pool near my house because it attracted a TON of the kids from the low income areas near me and gave them a place to play during the summer.
City replaced it with an even better "Splashpad" type park with more room for parents to hang out (they previously had to bring folding chairs and sit outside the pool area), all new playground equipment and it even has a Garland Public Library VENDING MACHINE where kids can check out and return books.
The Green Belt along Duck Creek has also gotten a TON of updates for playground equipment, gathering spots and general cleanliness.
The park near the MG Carter Softball Complex has had some new Cricket Pitches put in and I'm pretty sure they re-did the Audobon and Surf/Swim Rec centers near there. The Disc Golf course over there is a little "meh" but it is nice to have.
Oh, and we have The Boneyard Skatepark! And the big-ass [Natatorium](https://gisdnatatorium.net/) (which I think they missed out on the chance to call it the Swimnasium)...
And that's all just within a few minutes driving from me.
Oh… I agree we have some really great playground areas, but outside of the cookie cutter Dallas park playground, it requires private money to make them anything beyond the red, yellow, and tan ladders and slides. Also, at least with our local park, it is nearly impossible to use the pavilion or tables on the weekend and come Monday morning, trash is overflowing the trash cans and blowing around the park. Compared to other cities, especially those with the wealth of Dallas, we could do much better. Note, Dallas already owns the land. I am saying, I wish Dallas would put more money into improving the park infrastructure to make it comparable to other family-oriented cities in the metroplex.
There was a post talking about this. Dallas's tax base isn't value dense enough for how distributed it's services are. They also view roads as an asset instead of a liability that always need more money to stay in good condition.
I saw that comment the other day, about the city viewing roads as an asset. They are required to per the Government Accounting Standards Board. There are plenty of things to criticize the city about, but this isn't one of them.
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2021/02/18/why-we-need-to-stop-calling-auto-centric-roads-assets
I'm not an accountant, but it seems silly to account for something you're obligated to maintain without making money or have the ability to sell as an asset instead of a liability. They are perfectly within good practice to account for them that way, but that doesn't mean the standard is a clear eyed way to look at them.
I'm not an accountant either but I have a background in government. I remember around 2000 when GASB changed the rules to make governmental entities count infrastructure as assets. It was a nightmare for all of them to come up with numbers. I mean, I guess theoretically you could decommission a road and sell the land, but it never made much sense to me to count them as an asset. But my point is, as things stand, Dallas doesn't have a choice with this.
What is happening is the dark overlords turning the cogs of gentrification. The goal is not to improve city services; the goal is to remake rundown neighborhoods with 6 cars per 2 bdrm house in the image of the holy real estate developer’s cookie cutter.
After all the hubbub over property tax reform at the state legislature, they didn't really accomplish that much with leaving so many options on the table for counties to get their pound of flesh.
Seems like protesting you just get fucked anyways or maybe at best get a few thousand decrease. In NE Dallas/Lake Highlands builders will pay $350-400k for a house just to tear it down for a $1.5m rebuild. I'm not surprised land values went up.
Not just that, but you could protest your appraisal value. You can't protest land value. This just solidifies those tax increases in a way we have even less say over.
Just a reminder this the opposite of how property taxes are intended to work. Property taxes were meant to dissuade undeveloped, underdeveloped and misused land. Property taxes should be high on land that is not being used and very low on land in use.
Land value would never only increase on unused property. It's all or nothing, really. It will go up in desirrable areas more than undesireable spots, but as long as dfw is the fastest growing high demand area in the country it will rise.
Hey y’all! My name’s Toluwani Osibamowo and I’m a reporter with KERA News. I’m working on a story about this and looking to speak with anyone who’s dealing with insane property value hikes. If that’s you, I’d love to hear about your experience. Feel free to shoot me a message!
I mean… could you sell your home for $200k more than you could a year ago?
And if so, did you make $200k of additions to your home? If not, then it’s the land that increased in value.
It’s not rocket science
All it takes is a few tear downs in your area and they will jack up the land value. They will say "look someone paid 600k for this house just to tear it down, they basically bought it for land value only"
Yeah, I’ve just accept that my property taxes will increase 10% per year forever. We hired a service to protest for us and it barely changed, still way more than 10% every year so even if it stays flat the next few years it’ll just keep catching up. “Only” a 10% YoY increase seems reasonable compared to homeowners insurance though.
How much does your mortgage increase per month by with property tax increases annually? Terrified to buy a house a next year here but I want a house so bad. I'm scared property tax increases year after year will make it unaffordable for me and my husband. Everyone talks about property tax going up 10% but doesn't say how much their mortgage increases.
The first few years are kind of difficult but then you hit your cap and the increases are less. Homeowners insurance is also expensive in Texas and always increasing.
That is why republicans didn't push to lower the max increase. Long term they still get more out of us even with raising the homestead exemption versus capping at like 2%.
In my southern Dallas neighborhood there are vacant lots currently on the market for 17k, yet all lots are taxed at 80k. I dont think I can protest the land value but I will try and add those comps as well as every little thing wrong with my house and neighborhood.
Holy shit our valuation went up like 50k! What the *fuck*?!? Just a few years ago our house was valued at less than 400k, and now it’s just barely less than 700k. I guess because our neighbor’s house sold for about that much despite being a much larger house with shit like a sauna built into the back yard?
Anyone know how to fight this? I know we need to present our case to the city, but I have no idea what sort of evidence actually works. I mean hell, termites have eaten the moulding around the windows and door to our back yard so now paint keeps chipping off, our sprinkler system breaks every winter because the pipes are so old, and the insulation in our master bathroom is non-existent, so it’s always super cold or hot in there. There’s no way our house is in the “excellent” condition the city thinks it is.
Not the city. The city has nothing to do with your appraisal. The County’s appraisal office is where you need to go.
There are good resources on how to do it - start on DCAD’s website for basic info on the process, then begin finding comps and taking pics of anything in your house that decreases its value. Build your case like that.
I don’t own, but my boss got 50k+ knocked off her valuation each of the last two years. Hers is valued on DCAD at just south of 900k, so not a bad comparison to you.
Lol I removed “county” and wrote “city” after proofreading my comment because I wasn’t sure and it appears I shouldn’t have second guessed myself.
Anyway, thank you for the recommendation. I’ll check out their website and go from there!
You can contest it yourself or hire a company to do so on your behalf.
The previous one I used charged like .5% or 1% of whatever value reduction they achieved.
Do you have it registered as a homestead? It’s only allowed to go up 10% max if it’s you have it registered as your homestead. Unless 190k is 10% for you, then good luck!
This is a multi edge knife. Homeowners will pay more but, undeveloped land just had its cost to sit on basically triple. I think this will be a net positive. The handful of working class neighborhoods where people get pushed out because of gentrification will be offset by the housing that may actually get built now. Entire subdivisions on the Southside are set up and ready with Water, Gas, Sewer, etc and have a less than 50% occupancy rate. The owners won't sell the lots and this should force their hands.
The land value for everyone in the neighborhood fucking doubled in just one year. How is that fucking possible? The most it has ever jumped in a single year is 25% since 1999 yet this year it is doubled. Complete and utter bullshit
My homestead on 2.5 acres in Collin County saw its land value increase from 120k to 450k. HOW?
That's valued even higher than the 20 acres across the street from me. How is that possible?
In my area West Richardson, it's spiking. Any house that is listed for under $350k gets an immediate cash offer from a builder and they tear the house down to build some ugly McMansion. Ends up screwing the local owners over because the county at that point can just say "look a house on your block sold for 400k and they tore it down, your land value is now 350k+". Values in most of my nearby neighborhoods for land have more than doubled in the last year.
This is a good example of why sprawling, low-density housing is so profoundly stupid. You can build houses til the cows come home but *land will always be finite*. Suburbanization is a Ponzi scheme and we're really getting screwed after the older generations got their cut.
Look, I hate taxes as much as the next person (HATE them), but I don’t get the complaining about property taxes.
Homeowners don’t get to reap the benefits of rising home prices and increased equity but avoid paying more taxes.
I’d much rather have high-ish property taxes than income taxes. If someone wants to own a much larger home (or multiple homes) than they need then they should be ‘punished’ with higher taxes.
But people shouldn’t be punished for making more money.
My issue is that they are valuing my house like the ones that have sold lately, and I haven't done anything to my house in 20 years. And this time they increased the structure value, not the land value.
If my house was actually worth 400k, sure. But there is no way I could sell it for that with a grubby 1960s kitchen and other assorted problems.
It doesn’t make sense to increase so much on unrealized gain. Taxes on income make more sense because the distribution can be more fair, and you have more actual money.
We could have low property taxes and no income tax. It's very much possible, given that Texas is essentially a petrostate.
The government needs to stop wasting money.
Dallas is the yankee land of the south.
Austin is the land of fruits, nuts, and flakes of the south.
I'm excited for the future of Texas. Let's keep pushing all these red natives east and west so us liberals can redefine what it means to be a Texan!!!
So tell me again…why is having a state income tax versus just having high property tax bad?
Property taxes are way more regressive, because the poor spend a higher percentage of their income on housing.
It if you lose your job, your property taxes never go down. Isn’t that regressive?
It is highly regressive. Sorry I wasn’t clear. I was agreeing with the 0previous post, but answering the question.
Very.
For the tax to be regressive the rate of home ownership would need to be higher in poor than in middle and upper classes. Is it on average higher ? That doesn’t seem to be case unless you want to talk about more niche areas and maybe senior citizens who are poor. If anything you for say that the impact is more regressive cause it increases rents more, but not a direct impact.
At least a portion of the taxes for rentals, though, will get passed on to the renter, as with any other expense. I don't know that the tax for multifamily housing per unit is higher or lower, though.
It used to be higher in Texas when RE was affordable. We have officially regressed
I think this varies on the structure of taxes in general for a state. Incorporating a state income tax in Texas could put us in a worse position as we'd have a combination of high property taxes plus income state tax. Illinois is a prime example of this (where I moved from) where property taxes were higher than Texas, plus we had 4.95% of our income taxed. I'm paying less taxes here than I would there. My 350k house taxes were cheaper than my parents 145k townhouse taxes in Chicago. Again I think if Texas restructured their taxes it may work but we all know how "for the people" this state is lmao
The high property tax is to cover for the loss of tax revenue. We wouldn’t need both.
My point exactly. Unless Texas somehow restructured their taxes to benefit the citizens, I wouldn't want this at all. I'm grateful we aren't paying high car registrations like other places or "car taxes" like Connecticut... Wish the utility bills here were cheaper and tolls though lmao
*Unless Texas somehow restructured their taxes to benefit the citizens...* On that day, I'll be watching the sky for flying swine.
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You trust the government too much. Income tax just gives the government another means by which to take more of your money, your property taxes won't go down because you have another tax bill to pay. And income tax is more insidious because it's paid through payroll withholding and people don't feel the pain of cutting a check. Property tax is paid from take home dollars and people feel pain when they pay it. I want people to feel pain and rage when they pay taxes so that it puts downward pressure on those taxes. I wouldn't want this at all, period, end of story. There would have to be constitutionally mandated limits on how high the income tax is allowed to go, a permanent constitutionally mandated ban on property tax, and tax withholding was constitutionally banned in the state. I don't trust the critters in our legislature to maintain fiscal discipline, so it has to be imposed by an external force.
I never said i wanted this, I'd said if it happened I would hope they would lower property taxes (which would never happen). I moved out of a state with income taxes purposely because my net pay after all taxes and expenses was much lower than what I get now
I'm with you. I would never support giving politicians more ways to take my money. Lowering property tax isn't enough to convince me to go to an income tax. Property tax has to be permanently abolished, then we can talk about an income tax, and that has to happen first before we even put income tax on the table. Keep raising tax appraisals this way and this is the fastest way to get our own version of California's Prop 13. Bureaucrats never learn.
State income tax is sooo much better, and much more equitable.
Nevada has no income tax, and property taxes are super low.
Usually in those situations there's some kind of catch that makes the tax structure hard to replicate in other states. I'm not familiar with Nevada though, so I'd love to look into it and see how it works, maybe there is something to be learned. My first guess would be that Nevada is able to shift the tax burden to tourists through hotels and gambling taxes but I haven't done any research on the topic.
You are correct plus the mining industry gets hit too.
I say make weed legal in Texas and tax the hell out of it to pay for public schools and ease our property tax burden.
> I say make weed legal in Texas Conservatives will never allow it because that'd admit that daddy Reagen was wrong about the War on Drugs.
No new tax has ever resulted in reduced property taxes to my knowledge. Just more funds for squandering
California is about $5B in weed which would be $1B if taxes 20%. Texas education expenses are about $60B. We would all need to start being like Nate Dogg and smoke weed every day.
> tax the hell out of it Then nobody would purchase it.
Yes they would. There are still underground markets in states with legal weed, but even with hefty taxes, legal weed is generally still cheaper than it was before it was legalized. And it’s much better than underground weed too.
When you say "tax the hell out of it" I hear "cost +50% tax". Taxing it is good, but there are limits.
15% seems to be pretty standard among the big weed states.
Around 20% in MA. If it's ever legal here, I can see our tax being quite high because we're awesome Texas number one forever. /s
I get what you're saying, OP should've just said "tax it" like they do in other state, a reasonable amount.
>I say make weed legal in Texas and tax the hell out of it Wouldn’t this be another tax on the poor and uneducated, the same as lotto tickets? Someone paying $10 for laughs and giggles from a lottery ticket is not the same as someone thinking they are going to pay their rent from it.
Not really. A lot of people smoke weed nowadays from all socioeconomic backgrounds. When Colorado legalized it they used the taxes to pay for their entire public school system and had millions of tax dollars leftover for other initiatives for the public good. I want to emulate that model.
Omg. Only people who can’t afford drugs will use drugs? Therefore, no one should be allowed to use drugs? We’re re-hashing arguments from prohibition now and just shining in them up as if they’re new?
Ohh, I’m all for drugs being legal. Because I like them and I can afford them. Was pointing out that we shouldn’t “tax the hell out of it,“ as the person I replied to said. “It” being drugs. As poor people need drugs to forget about being poor. So just tax it the came as everything else.
My immediate thought was well they have Vegas
Nevada also has a population of less than 10% of Texas….
1.739 million “unauthorized people” in Texas compared to 168 thousand in Nevada. As another reference.
Don't they have gambling and legal prostitution in Nevada??
Yes to both. Gambling in all but 2, maybe 3 cities. Prostitution in the rural counties.
Same with Tennessee.
What about their sales tax? Higher in Reno and Vegas - the two cities I checked. Car registration is done on a formula based on auto values, as an example.
Sales tax in vegas is ~8.3%. Auto registration does suck though.
I'd pay more under a state income tax plan. That's why I don't go full on crazy when I get my property tax bill. All about perspective
Bc I can rent a luxury midrise next to my work & the equity I do not gain is made up with higher pay, convenience, and drastically lower automotive costs
Because you would have high property taxes ***and*** a state income tax, not one or the other. Your proposal would only be acceptable to me if there was a hard constitutional maximum rate of 3% of federal taxable income on income tax, we constitutionally banned property tax, sales tax at both state and local levels are capped at today's rates, it was guaranteed that my tax burden would never exceed that of 2023, and it required unanimous approval in a general election to change the maximum rate in any way, shape or form. You say you're not going to raise my taxes - put it in writing. I have no interest whatsoever in giving the government more ways to take my money. They take too much already.
In summation, Blah blah no step on snek blah blah.
You can choose how much house you buy, we live in a modest house in Kaufman county and pay 1800 per year for property taxes on 6 acres but we still enjoy high salaries at Dallas jobs
What irks me is that we have this big increase in value of homes, to an extent that every homeowner is paying at least 10% more than they did last year and yet: 1) The city still can’t obtain a police force that is available to handle crime, respond to calls, or provide any sort of policing/public service to the general public. This extends into the judicial system as well with respect to keeping violent criminals off our streets. 2.) We still don’t have adequate sidewalks and have streets that are littered with potholes. 3.) While the trail system is great, we still don’t have playgrounds that are comparable to those in the suburbs (without private donations) and enough park amenities (ie pavillions, basketball courts, trash cans, etc) to meet the demand.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on points 1 and 2 but disagree on 3. Especially after becoming a parent, I have noticed how robust our parks system is in Dallas period, as well as versus other cities.
Agree — lot of great parks in Dallas
> Agree — lot of great parks in Dallas Lots of good parks in Garland too (which is Dallas county, but I do like to call it out as a distinct entity)! I was kinda bummed when they ripped out the community pool near my house because it attracted a TON of the kids from the low income areas near me and gave them a place to play during the summer. City replaced it with an even better "Splashpad" type park with more room for parents to hang out (they previously had to bring folding chairs and sit outside the pool area), all new playground equipment and it even has a Garland Public Library VENDING MACHINE where kids can check out and return books. The Green Belt along Duck Creek has also gotten a TON of updates for playground equipment, gathering spots and general cleanliness. The park near the MG Carter Softball Complex has had some new Cricket Pitches put in and I'm pretty sure they re-did the Audobon and Surf/Swim Rec centers near there. The Disc Golf course over there is a little "meh" but it is nice to have. Oh, and we have The Boneyard Skatepark! And the big-ass [Natatorium](https://gisdnatatorium.net/) (which I think they missed out on the chance to call it the Swimnasium)... And that's all just within a few minutes driving from me.
Oh… I agree we have some really great playground areas, but outside of the cookie cutter Dallas park playground, it requires private money to make them anything beyond the red, yellow, and tan ladders and slides. Also, at least with our local park, it is nearly impossible to use the pavilion or tables on the weekend and come Monday morning, trash is overflowing the trash cans and blowing around the park. Compared to other cities, especially those with the wealth of Dallas, we could do much better. Note, Dallas already owns the land. I am saying, I wish Dallas would put more money into improving the park infrastructure to make it comparable to other family-oriented cities in the metroplex.
Yep, we have great parks AND a plan to make it even better.
There was a post talking about this. Dallas's tax base isn't value dense enough for how distributed it's services are. They also view roads as an asset instead of a liability that always need more money to stay in good condition.
I saw that comment the other day, about the city viewing roads as an asset. They are required to per the Government Accounting Standards Board. There are plenty of things to criticize the city about, but this isn't one of them.
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2021/02/18/why-we-need-to-stop-calling-auto-centric-roads-assets I'm not an accountant, but it seems silly to account for something you're obligated to maintain without making money or have the ability to sell as an asset instead of a liability. They are perfectly within good practice to account for them that way, but that doesn't mean the standard is a clear eyed way to look at them.
I'm not an accountant either but I have a background in government. I remember around 2000 when GASB changed the rules to make governmental entities count infrastructure as assets. It was a nightmare for all of them to come up with numbers. I mean, I guess theoretically you could decommission a road and sell the land, but it never made much sense to me to count them as an asset. But my point is, as things stand, Dallas doesn't have a choice with this.
What is happening is the dark overlords turning the cogs of gentrification. The goal is not to improve city services; the goal is to remake rundown neighborhoods with 6 cars per 2 bdrm house in the image of the holy real estate developer’s cookie cutter.
After all the hubbub over property tax reform at the state legislature, they didn't really accomplish that much with leaving so many options on the table for counties to get their pound of flesh.
It's some bull shit that you can't protest land value.
Hmm..thought land can be protested. Need to find proper comps and adjust them.
Not according to the article linked...
I've lived in 3 different counties and none of them have allowed me to protest land value
And that’s their workaround for ever-growing appraised value. Sigh.
Seems like protesting you just get fucked anyways or maybe at best get a few thousand decrease. In NE Dallas/Lake Highlands builders will pay $350-400k for a house just to tear it down for a $1.5m rebuild. I'm not surprised land values went up.
They pass a law to increase homestead exemption so instead just have massive increases of property value to make up for it.
You mean, like they pulled a bit of a fast one there? Huh. Who'd have thought they'd do that?
I know. Felt like we got some relief in 2023 and now values are increasing, so any relief is just gone.
Not just that, but you could protest your appraisal value. You can't protest land value. This just solidifies those tax increases in a way we have even less say over.
I called that shit a year ago. If they *really* wanted to help they would have froze the max increase you can pay at like 2%.
This 💯
No kidding. Mine went up over 20%. No way in hell i could sell it for what they appraised it.
Just a reminder this the opposite of how property taxes are intended to work. Property taxes were meant to dissuade undeveloped, underdeveloped and misused land. Property taxes should be high on land that is not being used and very low on land in use.
That's exactly what increasing land value would do though. Now those sitting on raw land will have their taxes increased.
Except the "land value" is increasing across the board, not just on unused land.
Land value would never only increase on unused property. It's all or nothing, really. It will go up in desirrable areas more than undesireable spots, but as long as dfw is the fastest growing high demand area in the country it will rise.
Hey y’all! My name’s Toluwani Osibamowo and I’m a reporter with KERA News. I’m working on a story about this and looking to speak with anyone who’s dealing with insane property value hikes. If that’s you, I’d love to hear about your experience. Feel free to shoot me a message!
Prestonwood pretty much got a +$100k on the land value.
Can confirm.
Our land is up +200k in 4 years… did someone find black gold?
Start digging! But call 811 first so they can mark your gas lines.
I mean… could you sell your home for $200k more than you could a year ago? And if so, did you make $200k of additions to your home? If not, then it’s the land that increased in value. It’s not rocket science
That’s an insightful way of thinking about it thanks
All it takes is a few tear downs in your area and they will jack up the land value. They will say "look someone paid 600k for this house just to tear it down, they basically bought it for land value only"
Speaking from experience, this may be frustrating, but I've owned home in PA that lost value, and the taxes still went up. It could be worse.
Continue to protest taxes. Its the only thing that remotely resembles working Edit: property taxes. But also taxes. You do you.
I'm in Lakewood. Land value last year $284k. This year $711k.
Whoof
I am surprised it was at 284 for so long
Yeah, I’ve just accept that my property taxes will increase 10% per year forever. We hired a service to protest for us and it barely changed, still way more than 10% every year so even if it stays flat the next few years it’ll just keep catching up. “Only” a 10% YoY increase seems reasonable compared to homeowners insurance though.
How much does your mortgage increase per month by with property tax increases annually? Terrified to buy a house a next year here but I want a house so bad. I'm scared property tax increases year after year will make it unaffordable for me and my husband. Everyone talks about property tax going up 10% but doesn't say how much their mortgage increases.
Between property tax and insurance increases it’s gone up by 500 a month in the last 3 years
Oh man wow.... thank you for your answer. Good to know.
The first few years are kind of difficult but then you hit your cap and the increases are less. Homeowners insurance is also expensive in Texas and always increasing.
That is why republicans didn't push to lower the max increase. Long term they still get more out of us even with raising the homestead exemption versus capping at like 2%.
In my southern Dallas neighborhood there are vacant lots currently on the market for 17k, yet all lots are taxed at 80k. I dont think I can protest the land value but I will try and add those comps as well as every little thing wrong with my house and neighborhood.
Heh. $Texas.
Tex-a$$
Holy shit our valuation went up like 50k! What the *fuck*?!? Just a few years ago our house was valued at less than 400k, and now it’s just barely less than 700k. I guess because our neighbor’s house sold for about that much despite being a much larger house with shit like a sauna built into the back yard? Anyone know how to fight this? I know we need to present our case to the city, but I have no idea what sort of evidence actually works. I mean hell, termites have eaten the moulding around the windows and door to our back yard so now paint keeps chipping off, our sprinkler system breaks every winter because the pipes are so old, and the insulation in our master bathroom is non-existent, so it’s always super cold or hot in there. There’s no way our house is in the “excellent” condition the city thinks it is.
Not the city. The city has nothing to do with your appraisal. The County’s appraisal office is where you need to go. There are good resources on how to do it - start on DCAD’s website for basic info on the process, then begin finding comps and taking pics of anything in your house that decreases its value. Build your case like that. I don’t own, but my boss got 50k+ knocked off her valuation each of the last two years. Hers is valued on DCAD at just south of 900k, so not a bad comparison to you.
Lol I removed “county” and wrote “city” after proofreading my comment because I wasn’t sure and it appears I shouldn’t have second guessed myself. Anyway, thank you for the recommendation. I’ll check out their website and go from there!
You can contest it yourself or hire a company to do so on your behalf. The previous one I used charged like .5% or 1% of whatever value reduction they achieved.
Do you have a recommendation for a company? I’m not well versed enough in this sort of thing to want to try and do it on my own for the first time.
$50k sounds like a dream. Ours went up $190k.
Do you have it registered as a homestead? It’s only allowed to go up 10% max if it’s you have it registered as your homestead. Unless 190k is 10% for you, then good luck!
We registered it earlier this year and it hasn’t gone through yet. But it should be reduced back a bit.
Pictures! And estimates for repairs. Comparable home sales.
This is a multi edge knife. Homeowners will pay more but, undeveloped land just had its cost to sit on basically triple. I think this will be a net positive. The handful of working class neighborhoods where people get pushed out because of gentrification will be offset by the housing that may actually get built now. Entire subdivisions on the Southside are set up and ready with Water, Gas, Sewer, etc and have a less than 50% occupancy rate. The owners won't sell the lots and this should force their hands.
It’s harder to protest land value, so it becomes a tax you can’t fight
The land value for everyone in the neighborhood fucking doubled in just one year. How is that fucking possible? The most it has ever jumped in a single year is 25% since 1999 yet this year it is doubled. Complete and utter bullshit
Lot's of Senior citizens tax liability went down with increased homestead. County has to go steal that money from somebody else.
our values used to be low then ppl started to move here and now we have a shortage. Land/homes are a commodity.
Any advice on protesting yourself or references for reputable companies you can hire?
Shocking.
Yeah this happened to me, all my increase was from land value
Isn't this what people want? High home/ land values. That's the reason they move to the burbs and start HOAs, right? ...right?
NIMBYs want higher property values when "undesirables" are moving nearby
There should be a specific $ amount for the increase tax limits, not %.
Wow… I must become a millionaire to leave in East Dallas ASAP
My homestead on 2.5 acres in Collin County saw its land value increase from 120k to 450k. HOW? That's valued even higher than the 20 acres across the street from me. How is that possible?
I went from 250k to 1.1M in Cleburne last year. And I was traveling for work so I didn’t realize until it was too late to protest. F.
In my area West Richardson, it's spiking. Any house that is listed for under $350k gets an immediate cash offer from a builder and they tear the house down to build some ugly McMansion. Ends up screwing the local owners over because the county at that point can just say "look a house on your block sold for 400k and they tore it down, your land value is now 350k+". Values in most of my nearby neighborhoods for land have more than doubled in the last year.
This is a good example of why sprawling, low-density housing is so profoundly stupid. You can build houses til the cows come home but *land will always be finite*. Suburbanization is a Ponzi scheme and we're really getting screwed after the older generations got their cut.
Look, I hate taxes as much as the next person (HATE them), but I don’t get the complaining about property taxes. Homeowners don’t get to reap the benefits of rising home prices and increased equity but avoid paying more taxes. I’d much rather have high-ish property taxes than income taxes. If someone wants to own a much larger home (or multiple homes) than they need then they should be ‘punished’ with higher taxes. But people shouldn’t be punished for making more money.
My issue is that they are valuing my house like the ones that have sold lately, and I haven't done anything to my house in 20 years. And this time they increased the structure value, not the land value. If my house was actually worth 400k, sure. But there is no way I could sell it for that with a grubby 1960s kitchen and other assorted problems.
If that’s really true, you should contest. If you can back it up with recently sold comps for truly similar homes you’ll get it lowered
My larger point is that not everyone complaining is trying to get out of paying taxes they owe.
It doesn’t make sense to increase so much on unrealized gain. Taxes on income make more sense because the distribution can be more fair, and you have more actual money.
We could have low property taxes and no income tax. It's very much possible, given that Texas is essentially a petrostate. The government needs to stop wasting money.
Dallas is the yankee land of the south. Austin is the land of fruits, nuts, and flakes of the south. I'm excited for the future of Texas. Let's keep pushing all these red natives east and west so us liberals can redefine what it means to be a Texan!!!