Protesting Your Property Taxes, 2023

We have helped a number of neighbors gathering info in preparation for protesting their property taxes, which jumped considerably for many of us. Country Place published sales of four homes in 2022 (we don’t have access to private sales). You can click the link below to see detail of these sales, which you will need to do in order to compare your home:

2022 Country Place Home Sales

And here is a comparative market analysis showing greater detail of the sold homes. You can see the big swing in cost per square foot ranging from $127 to $184 a square foot; a lot depends on the home’s age, updates, and maintenance. Obviously, a forty-year-old home with no updates and a lot of deferred maintenance is going to appraise for much less than a newer, more energy-efficient home with up-to-date features. The spreadsheet below will give you a good idea of what Smith County’s appraisers are looking at in this current appraisal period. For specific information on protesting Smith County taxes, click here. If you have questions regarding your home’s appraisal, feel free to call me (903.714.7090) or Andrea (903.714.7091).

 

CP Real Estate: Property Tax Shock

I had a call on Saturday from a friend who had received her property tax notice. She was upset, near tears,  because her home’s value had been more than doubled in the past year. While hers is an unusual case, I have spoken to several neighbors whose appraisals appreciated by 15-30%. If you are planning to protest your appraisal, you may want to take a look at this page and take a moment to look at the data behind these increases. (The document can be downloaded here: 2022-04-30_Country Place Comps.)

If you look at the average and median numbers above (highlighted in yellow), you’ll see that the list price is lower than the sold price. These sales include several homes in need of extensive repairs and/or updates.

While Tyler’s numbers aren’t as dramatic as Austin’s (median price now at $499,995), they are unprecedented for East Texas, where home prices have typically increased 3-5% a year. In the infographic below, you can see that 2021 saw an almost 14% increase in the median price of a Tyler home.

With the big wave of metropolitan and blue-state refugees flooding into our area, Smith County is going to have a hard time expanding the infrastructure to accommodate all this growth, so they are being aggressive with property taxes.

 

Country Place Real Estate

19651 Oakmeadow Circle, Country Place. Recently sold home.

In spite of Covid and the lack of home inventory, we have had a lot of real estate activity in Country Place this summer with some historically high prices. The home at 18940 Big Timber Rd closed on the 18th at $129.41 a sf. The home at 3040 Ridgetop closed on the 16th at $108.98 a sf. The Terrell’s sold their home on Jo-Bar for $140 a sf. Richard Idell’s home at 19710 Copperoaks Drive is under contract now. We sold the Ouelette’s home at 19651 Oakmeadow Circle in June for $174 a sf. Country Place continues to be a sought-after address for many and we maintain a list of folks who’ve contacted us hoping to join the party. I ran across a gentleman yesterday who is hoping to move his family here and I am having to email him to let him know that the contract on the Idell’s home is solid and headed to closing soon. There are many new neighborhoods being put in around us but none with the sort of elbow-room and sense of community we offer here.

Morning Walk: New Neighbors

One of the benefits of living in Country Place is the ability to take walks surrounded by trees and many beautifully landscaped yards. It’s also a great place to catch up with neighbors, as I did last Monday morning. One of the folks I ran across is Aaron Finley. He and his wife bought the home we sold for the Tiller’s home on Great Oak Circle and have been busy updating to accommodate their three children. We talked about the pandemic, the economy, the election…but mostly about photography, websites and fishing. The Finley’s are enjoying the neighborhood, and it’s a good feeling to have had a small part in making that happen.