Investor · TX · Member since 2020 · 23 posts · 13 votes
Hello fellow investors,
I am currently looking to buy my first property (HouseHack) to be around 15 miles from Lewisville area.
I just realized that Lewisville has one of the highest house taxes in the cities around it so far, any suggestions where is the best areas from growth perspective as well as lower taxes that area?
@Bishara M. I would look into Little Elm, Prosper, and possibly the east part of Farmer's Branch. They all have lower prop tax but Not sure if you will find many duplex's to house hack in those areas.
@Bishara M. I would look into Little Elm, Prosper, and possibly the east part of Farmer's Branch. They all have lower prop tax but Not sure if you will find many duplex's to house hack in those areas.
Here is a Website for Prop Tax % It's for all of Texas so it'll give you what you want. You just may need to search around for the cities you're within range of. There's more results on Google but I liked how this give more of a breakdown for Dallas, Fort Worth, and DFW.
@Bishara M. - property taxes are high in Texas and unless you are headed out to more rural areas, I would not waste a lot of time considering one municipality in DFW vs another from a tax perspective.
Here is the good news: you are house-hacking, so that means at least for the interim you will be an owner-occupant - this will be your"homestead". Be sure to register the property as your homestead with the county appraisal district to get the homestead exemption. That limits the amount of increase in value that they can assign your property from year to year to 10%. Compare that to some of my rentals (absentee owner) where I have recently seen an 80% increase!
Buy right and secure a low entry price and protest your appraised value down to your purchase price with the county - in other words start low; then put the homestead exemption into place, and they can only take you up 10% per year (max) - in other words slow the increase. That will be your best approach to limiting taxes in the short to mid-term, until you vacate the property. If you keep it as a rental, once it is no longer your homestead be ready for the value to jump. And continue to protest the tax value EVERY YEAR.
@Bishara M. This is a couple years old, but might give you an idea of property tax rates for different areas.
https://images.kw.com/docs/2/1... It is a consideration, but not the only one. I don't think you can just shop for cities with the lowest tax rates...for example Highland Park and Westlake have some of the lowest rates, but they also have some of the most expensive houses. If I remember right Lewisville has one of the lowest tax rates in the area. Low side is typically about 2%...high side is about 3%.