Wholesaler/ Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2014 · 491 posts · 113 votes
Hello Everyone,
I have a quick question about finding accurate Property Tax info.I want to make sure I am doing it correctly because of course the numbers have to make sense.
So I’m in Harris County here in Houston, Texas. I went to the Harris County Tax Assessors website and pulled the property by the address and saw that the total taxes for 2014 are $699.29… Is that it? It seems too easy. I feel like I’m missing something.
Also, I know Zillow can be super-duper inaccurate with numbers but can they be this inaccurate…. They stated that the total 2014 taxes for the property was $1,824… that’s a whopping $1,124.71 difference. (Below)
That looks like it's only the tax for Harris County. There should also be tax for the local school district, which is usually the highest of the three property taxes. The third one will likely be for the local MUD/WCID district that most (but not all) houses will be part of.
@Michael Le and @John Truong are right about the additional taxing authorities. You can look at HAR.com for more complete tax info. Just do a search on HAR for the property address. HAR says this property is taxed at 2.9423% when you total up all of the taxing authorities. So, if it's appraised at $87K, the taxes would be $2,560/year.
The $1,824/year listed by Zillow is the amount paid in 2014, which was based on the 2013 appraisal (which was $62,000). Speaking of which, I'd be careful about how much you offer for this house. I see that the asking price is $99.9K, but just 2 years ago it was appraised at $62K. Tax appraisals aren't 100% accurate, but unless that house has been rehabbed in the past 2 years, that seems like an awfully big price spike.
thank you for your response... Yes, now that I went to HCAD.com I see that I missed those two. So is hcad where you get a true list of all the taxes associated with a property?
When a new development is getting built on empty land there is usually no water lines, sewage, drainage or anything else like that. It has to be built, along with the streets, etc. To get the money to build these the developers will petition the state to get a MUD formed. And then the MUD will sell bonds to raise money to build this needed infrastructure. And then to pay down those bonds, a MUD tax is charged against the property. Over time the bonds should get paid down so that means over time your MUD tax goes down. A lot of older homes (30 years or so) no longer have this tax so their tax rate is usually around 2% versus the 3-4% in a brand new neighborhood. Don't 100% quote me on this but I think this is right.
There are some slight differences between MUDs and WCIDs but I don't think they're significant.
Good Evening @Leigh Ann Smith thank you so much for your response. Is HAR.com the source you turn to for accurate numbers usually when analyzing deals? Or do you break it down and investigate each taxing entity?
Also, thank you for your insight on the appraisal and asking price. That makes so much sense. I have learned so much about property taxes within the last few hours. I really thought it was just a simple search on the HCAD site and that was it. Thanks again.
p.s. : 1 Timothy 6:17-19 is an amazing scripture that speaks volumes.
@Ray A. It looks like it's in the Barker Cypress area. It's not a house I'm really interested in, it's just a sample house I was analyzing the expenses on. The taxes are pretty high in the area but I love the area and my daughter just started a preschool there so I'm really trying to see if it could possibly work out.