Harris County Appraisal District estimates the market value for 1.6 million parcels of real estate with a staff of about 150 appraisers. That's an average of over 10,000 parcels per appraiser per year! While they value a large number of properties annually, you can focus intense attention on reducing the value of your property. You can minimize your property taxes with simple steps:

• File a protest by May 31st for market value and unequal appraisal
  
• Obtain the Harris County Appraisal District evidence?two weeks before the hearing. This information is sometimes referred to as the House Bill 201 package or the 41.461 package. It typically contains evidence regarding the subject property, market value and unequal appraisal.
  
• Review evidence for both unequal appraisal and market value. Unequal appraisal is when your property is taxed/assessed at a higher rate than comparable properties. For a market value appeal, provided evidence that the appraisal district's value exceeds market value. This could include information such as an error in the size of your property and deferred maintenance at your property.
  
• Attend the informal and/or appraisal review board (ARB) hearing at the Harris County Appraisal District. In many cases, you can attend a hearing prior to the scheduled date. HCAD prefers to have hearings prior to rather than after the scheduled hearing date.
  
• Repeat these steps annually.

Property owners often ask, "I appealed my property taxes at the Harris County Appraisal District last year and obtained a reduction. Harris County Appraisal District did not increase my assessed value. Should I protest my property taxes again this year?" The answer is, "Yes, you should protest." There are 2 reasons you should protest the assessed value established by the Harris County Appraisal District each year:

1. The prior years value set an "anchor value" for the current year's property tax protest. If your value was $200,000 last year and the current year's proposed value is $220,000, there is a tendency to set the value at or slightly above last year's value. In the case, a typical result might be $200,000 to $210,000. However, if they had appealed at the Harris County Appraisal District the prior year and reduced the value to $185,000, a typical settlement might be $185,000 - $195,000. Property tax appeals at Harris County Appraisal District are an iterative process.
   
2. Most appeals at Harris County Appraisal District are successful. About 75-80% of the property tax appeals conducted by O'Connor & Associates at Harris County Appraisal District result in lower property taxes.

Experience shows that when property owners appeal, prepare for the Harris County Appraisal District hearings and attend the hearing(s), they will usually be successful. Property tax consultants are willing to handle the property tax protest process at Harris County Appraisal District for a portion of the property tax savings. While there is a cost when hiring a property tax consultant, you realize property tax savings. The property tax savings versus the cost of a property tax consultant are more significant when considering the iterative nature of the property tax appeal process.