Central Texas Property Taxes — Estimated 2010 Values

I attended a meeting a couple of weeks ago where the Chief Appraiser for Williamson County told us that the average taxable value of homes there declined about 4.5%  from 2009 to 2010.  (See New properties stabilize Williamson County tax appraisal.)  Of course, that is the average.  There are neighborhoods where values fell  farther, and others where values increased.  The good news for Williamson County homeowners is that growth (i.e., new construction) added enough value to the tax rolls  to more than offset the declines in existing homes, so there will be less pressure on taxing jurisdictions to increase property rates to sustain revenues.

Today, the Austin American-Statesman published much the same kind of story about Bastrop County (Bastrop County’s property values hold steady).   In that area, the average value of a single family home actually increased this year due to construction of high-end new homes.

Today’s article also mentioned that overall values in  Hays County will dip slightly this year, and included this chart:

These graphs shows that total assessed value in each of these three counties are up between 2% and 5% this year compared to last, even though the average value of a single family home declined about 2% in Hays and Williamson Counties.

Of course, these are only “proposed values” until the protest period ends and values are certified, but one would expect fewer protests  in this situation than in years where many homeowners are notified of increases in the taxable values of their properties.

I have not seen similar reports from Travis County yet, but I expect to see that both average and total values are down slightly there.  It will be interesting to see how this goes.   Last year, Travis County increased so many property values by so much that they attracted  more protests than they could process.   They actually missed the certification deadline in 2009, still trying to satisfy homeowners  who had filed protests that had not yet been heard and decided.