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Interviewer:
Can you just tell me a bit about yourself?
Jennifer L.:
Hi, my name is Jennifer Lewis. I am a team leader at the Keller Williams Austin Southwest Market Center, and I’ve been in real estate for about nine years, and my husband and I are also real estate investors who own multiple properties in the Austin area.
Interviewer:
As a real estate professional, were you surprised to learn that 92% of homeowners don’t have a professional helping them with their property taxes?
Jennifer L.:
It is surprising that 92% of homeowners do not have someone helping them with their property taxes, and yet as a realtor, I found that out very quickly that people not only didn’t file for their own property tax relief, and that they didn’t ask their realtor for help, and they certainly weren’t looking for or asking for help from a professional, which is unfortunate. And having done it many times myself, it’s very surprising because I know how much it saves people.
Interviewer:
What are some of the most common complaints you hear from your clients about the property taxes?
Jennifer L.:
There are a lot of complaints about property taxes, especially in the Austin area. We have such high property tax valuations and percentages that people pay. Especially the folks who’ve been moving here from elsewhere. So there’s a lot of complaints about how high the taxes are. And again, just surprising how few people go forward in protesting that to help maintain or keep their property taxes lower.
Interviewer:
How have you helped your clients in the past with their property taxes?
Jennifer L.:
So as a realtor, I often yearly would contact my clients to help them with property tax protesting because it is such an important part of your home ownership journey and an important part of keeping property taxes low for everyone. So I would often offer to run CMAs on people’s properties or comparable market analysis so they understood what their property values were and what they might be able to use to help them. And yet that doesn’t include it all, right? We can send them a link to protesting their property, which the city has actually made a lot easier. And yet just taking the time to fill out that protest form and then go show up in person to do the protesting is something most of my clients would say, I just don’t have time for that, Jen, thanks for the offer. Thanks for the help. I just don’t have of time.
Interviewer:
Have you or your clients worked with other tax protest companies and what was your or their experience?
Jennifer L.:
I have worked with other property protest companies and I have offered that service up to my clients in the past. It definitely made the process easier and yet year over year, it just kept getting more and more expensive, almost to the point where it didn’t make a lot of sense to even go forward with the process, knowing that I was going to owe almost as much as I was saving every time. I think that was true for a lot of my clients. So I was really pleasantly surprised to hear that there was another company out there doing it for very competitive rates in a way that really helps people save money on their taxes.
Interviewer:
How do you differentiate yourself in the competitive residential real estate environment?
Jennifer L.:
Differentiating yourself in this real estate environment, especially with how many realtors there are in this city. There’s about 18,000 in our MLS is a tough road for a lot of realtors. One of the things I personally used to differentiate myself was expertise and knowledge on what was going on in the city. So property tax protesting was a huge thing for me. It was something that a lot of my investor clients and a lot of my homeowners were very interested in. went through a lot of processes to learn more about that in hopes to help offer some real value to people when they weren’t buying and selling with me so that it kept me top of mind.
Interviewer:
How important is trust in your business?
Jennifer L.:
That is probably the number one thing I used to tell all of my clients. I actually don’t sell homes. I sell trust. Because if you can’t trust me to bring you really strong value and strong information that you don’t just know on your own, what good am I other than opening a door to a house that pretty much anyone can do?
Interviewer:
What do your clients expect from you as a trusted real estate partner?
Jennifer L.:
I believe that my clients expect when there are important things happening in the real estate industry, in the city and the county that affect their home ownership, that I am their advocate. Not just the day that they bought the home or sold their home and purchased a new one with me, but forever, if I’m not that advocate for them going forward, I am going to lose their trust. I may have had it when they bought and sold with me, but my goal as a realtor was always to maintain those relationships. And what’s a better way to do that than through continuing to bring them great value throughout the years?
Interviewer:
When you’re looking to differentiate yourself professionally, what is most important to you?
Jennifer L.:
To differentiate myself professionally, I think it’s important to come from a place of the education and knowledge. I know that getting a real estate license is not that difficult to do in this environment. And there are lots of us, so having better understanding of the market, better understanding of property taxes, better understanding of how to bring value and savings to our clients is hugely important in differentiating myself.
Interviewer:
Was it easy to set up your personalized Home Tax Shield page?
Jennifer L.:
It was very easy to set up my home tax shield page. It was really just a couple of clicks and filling out my name and some information and it was pretty much all done for me in a matter of minutes.
Interviewer:
What set Home Tax Shield apart from other tax protest companies?
Jennifer L.:
There are so many things that set Home Tax Shield apart from other protesting companies. The number one, I think being the savings that they offer and the ability for me as a realtor to feel very comfortable sharing that with others. Their website is very easy to use, and it’s super simple for me to share that with my clients. It’s very simple to share that with my friends and my family members. And again, just being able to bring that value cleanly, simply, and fast was really nice.
Interviewer:
Can you tell me a story about a client who benefited from Home Tax Shield?
Jennifer L.:
A couple of my clients raved about how much they were able to save in a very fast growth market where property values are going up 30% or so, depending on neighborhood. Personally, I saved a bunch of money. I wanted to make sure that I was using Home Tax Shield first, before I made a big splash with it, because as I said earlier, I don’t sell homes. I sell trust. So if I didn’t trust it, how could I trust it with others? I definitely took advantage of that, and my husband and I were able to reduce the price of the home we had just purchased. So I couldn’t be happier with how much we were able to save on potential tax increases on our homestead, and the other five properties that we also own.
Interviewer:
How does partnering with Home Tax Shield help you stay top of mind with your clients?
Jennifer L.:
Partnering with Home Tax Shield can benefit staying in touch with clients because it’s, just a very simple and easy way to add value to a client’s day. They may have forgotten about what I said at closing and what they could do with their property protest. But if I want to send out an easy way to connect with them during tax season, sending them something through the website, or even just an email with a link to my professional page is very, a very, very easy way to stay in touch with my clients.
Interviewer:
Would you recommend Home Tax Shield to other real estate professionals?
Jennifer L.:
It was a really fantastic system to use, and I would definitely be recommending Home Tax Shield to anyone. I co-run an office of over 1100 agents and there isn’t anything that would stop me from saying to any one of them that this is something that they should use for their clients as a benefit to them, and as a value add throughout the year.