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Interviewer:
Can you just tell me a bit about yourself?
Jamie A.:
My name is Jamie Ammerman and I’m a realtor with Cooper Sotheby’s in the Texas Hill Country area. I currently live in Burney, Texas the heart of the Hill country. I live on 17 acres in a lovely neighborhood. It’s called Cordillera ranch. I’m very blessed to get to live here. I’ve lived in four different homes since being on this ranch for the last 15 years. It’s a special place and I love real estate. That’s why I’m a realtor by trade.
Interviewer:
Are there any issues you’ve heard from clients or common complaints about property taxes in your area?
Jamie A.:
Taxes are always a tricky subject to have with buyers and sellers. A lot of times people are wanting to own their home outright, but where we live in Texas, obviously we have to pay taxes. And a lot of buyers and homeowners aren’t aware that you can fight your taxes in order to get a better-appraised value of your home. That’s why Home Tax Shield has been such a great value for me to offer to my clients. As soon as we close on a home, I have always recommended in the past. I would always recommend for them to take their contract directly to the text County office to fight their taxes. But now that Home Tax Shield is here, it’s a much simpler process.
Interviewer:
92% of homeowners don’t have professionals that help them with their property taxes. Is that surprising to you?
Jamie A.:
Honestly, no. I don’t think most homeowners even understand that they can fight their property taxes. I think that they get the tax bill and say, gosh, my taxes went up, that’s stinks and they just pay it. There is not a lot of awareness that you can actually fight your property taxes and save your family money.
Interviewer:
Do you send your clients reminders?
Jamie A.:
Typically, after I close a transaction with a new buyer, I let them know that they need to go to Home Tax Shield and register their property address. After that, Home Tax Shield takes care of the rest and fighting their taxes. It is the same when I’m meeting with current homeowners that are interested in selling or just previous clients of mine. It’s a really great opportunity for me to have a new touchpoint and add value to the relationship that I have with them as their realtor. To give them a yearly reminder that goes out to say, “Hey, don’t forget to put your information into Home Tax Shield so that they can take care of the rest to fight your taxes for you and hopefully save you some money”.
Interviewer:
What did you do before Home Tax Shield?
Jamie A.:
Before Home Tax Shield was around any home that we would purchase, we would take our contracts to the tax office and show them what we actually paid for the home to present it to them in hopes that we could fight what the current property tax level was, in order to bring it down. We’ve been successful every time, but it’s a headache. You have to go over, you have to make an appointment and you have to have all the right documentation. Sometimes, you don’t get great answers, or you have to go more than once to talk to the right person that is willing to hear your story and why you think your taxes should be lowered. But now that Home Tax Shield is around, it’s just a much smoother process. It’s literally a couple of clicks of a button online, and they do all the fighting for you. Then they send you an email with the results. It’s super simple. It makes complete sense, and it takes the headache away from the homeowner.
I also made sure that clients filed for their homestead exemption, but now I’m able to have another touchpoint with them about reminding them that they can fight their taxes, not just file for an exemption. It’s a great touchpoint besides just sending them another brochure about me or a property that I’ve sold. I don’t like to always just talk about what I’m doing, I want to add value to my clients. So this is something that I can send on a yearly basis to help remind them and educate them about the opportunity that is there for them to fight their taxes and to save money and stay happy in their homes.
Interviewer:
It sounds like this is an ideal way to build trust with your clients.
Jamie A.:
What I love about Home Tax Shield is that it is so simple. They’ve set it up perfectly for realtors. I’ve signed up on their website and so I’m able to send a link to all my past clients and future clients that I have relationships with for them to do an easy step-by-step process of getting them to register their home in order to fight their property taxes. It’s simple, it’s rewarding. And I love being able to hear back from clients like, Hey, thanks so much for sending this to me. You just saved me money.
Interviewer:
So it is like a partnership?
Jamie A.:
I would call myself a partner with Home Tax Shield. Like I’ve said, it’s a great added value program to send to my clients. That’s not always about real estate per se. In regard to me, it’s something to send to my clients to help them and it takes me out of the picture. I don’t want it to be a self-serving realtor where everything I send and of my marketing materials is about me and what I’ve done. I want to add value to my clients. So having a relationship with Home Tax Shield really provides that opportunity to show them a different side of me that I’m trying to help them outside of a real estate transaction.
Interviewer:
How is Home Tax Shield is benefiting your real estate business?
Jamie A.:
Home Tax Shield has benefited my real estate business because it’s adding value to my clients. It’s allowing me an opportunity to have another touch point with them. That’s not just about real estate transactions. It’s keeping the relationship going with past clients and maybe even future clients in having something else to talk to them about and help them with, to save money. Another thing that’s wonderful about Home Tax Shield and the relationship that I have as a realtor, is being able to send clients to them. It’s so simple. It doesn’t take any type of major legwork on my part as a realtor to set it all up and send it out to clients. It’s literally like a click, click, click and done, and the clients are in the best benefit of being able to save money.
Setting up my page with Home Tax Shield was too easy! I couldn’t believe how easy it was. It made me immediately send out the information to other realtors in my office to make sure that they could also take advantage of the awesome ease of use, and also just the added value that they could send to their clients as well. Every Texas homeowner should have the opportunity to fight their taxes with ease of use and be made aware of the fact that we can fight our taxes in Texas.
Interviewer:
Can you just talk to me a little bit about that, about how Home Tax Shield is kind of maybe set apart from other tax protest companies?
Jamie A.:
So, Home Tax Shield is special because of the ease of use and the communication that they continue to have with clients and or realtors throughout the year. They do a really good job of making the process simple and rewarding. It’s always been something that we’ve done on our own as homeowners, as soon as I was made aware of what Home Tax Shield was about, it just made perfect sense. It took the headache and the time away from me having to go down to the tax office and do the fighting myself and allowed a company to take care of it for me, which they’re much more knowledgeable and it was super simple. It was literally like three clicks of a button and I submitted the address. And then I was on my way and within a few weeks later, I found out the result of the money that I was able to save.