Actually, the sky is NOT falling. But as Dan notes in his post immediately below this one, housing values are.
One of the cover stories in this morning’s Houston Chronicle reports that residential housing prices have decreased or stagnated in Harris County (Houston and surrounding areas), something that hasn’t happened since the oil bust of the 1980's. The article indicates that, based on the completed appraisals of 85% of the nearly one million homes in the county, approximately 45% of homeowners will see a decrease in appraised value, approximately 40% will see no noticeable change, and approximately 15% – primarily in areas where houses are valued at half a million dollars or more (whew!) – will observe an increase. The chief appraiser reports that the total value of the 85% of homes appraised to date has decreased approximately 2.5% in value since last year.
Texas has no state income tax, so the property taxes can be hefty. Does any decrease in value of my home guarantee a reduction in my property taxes? Not necessarily. Taxing authorities can simply raise the tax rate. I expect that most authorities will do so. But the story reports that “local leaders said they have assumed a slowdown was imminent and budgeted accordingly.” Hmmm. We’ll see.
As of the time of this posting, the article has generated over 150 comments from readers.
And additional information on the Harris County valuation process and property tax process can be found at the HCAD website here.