Why Did My Mortgage Go Up After a Year?
Mortgage payments can be complicated, especially if you’ve recently moved into a new home or are a first-time homebuyer. 32% of homebuyers across the state last year were first-time homebuyers. If you count yourself among them, you may be just beginning to feel comfortable paying a mortgage, managing house insurance, and keeping tabs on fluctuating […]
The Future of Property Tax Relief Laws in Texas
Most homeowners don’t have an extra $4,000 to put down on property taxes yearly, but that’s the situation many Texans face.
What Are the Recently Proposed Changes in Homestead Exemptions, and Will They Help?
The Texas House of Representatives and the Texas Senate have passed competing measures to deal with the looming property tax crisis. Both bills are designed to provide immediate tax relief. Still, they use different mechanisms: one wants to increase the property tax exemption amount, and the other wants to reduce the assessed value increase cap […]
What is the Texas Legislature Doing to Help Lower Property Taxes?
Homeowners across Texas are combatting rapidly rising property tax bills that put their budgets and continued homeownership at risk. For the past few years, property valuations have risen sharply due to increased demand and hot real estate markets driving up prices—even for homeowners who never put their homes on the market. With economic uncertainty and […]
Falling Property Values: When Do They Impact Property Taxes?
The Texas real estate market seems to have reached its peak toward mid-2022. The year ended with lower demand in major cities, the beginning of a price drop trend, and a bit more inventory (or availability of houses for sale in the market) than buyers saw in most of 2021 and 2022. However, the potential […]
Rising Inequality: Low-Income Homeowners Seek Property Tax Relief
Socioeconomic inequality in property tax assessment and protest Increasing property values are usually a good thing, but there is an instance in which it’s not desirable: property tax appraisal. Every year, homeowners experience shock when receiving their tax notices. And more often than should, the county-appraised property value varies dramatically from the home’s fair market […]