If you live in Steiner Ranch, you've likely received your 2011 property tax appraisal from the Travis Central Appraisal District (TCAD).  When you opened it, you were most likely either pleasantly surprised or totally miffed.  It seems that this year the valuations are either notably under market value or notably over market value. 

Thanks to a Steiner resident who called me after meeting with TCAD today, I have uncovered what has happened.  Let me clearly disclose that I am just getting to understand it and, as of this writing, I have not spoken to the right folks at TCAD.  I plan to stop by and visit with them on Monday and, of course, will report back.  I will go into much more detail on Tuesday, May 17th at 7:00pm at the workshop I am hosting on how to protest your property taxes.

Anyway, in the past, the appraisal district has used 5 comparable sales to set the value of a given property.  However, the methodology for valuing property in Steiner Ranch was changed this year.  The new method is called the "Mass Appraisal Method."  They claim this is an appropriate method because it is "essentially an automated application of the sales comparison approad that uses all sales in a give Economic Area, not just three to five."  They used almost 1400 property sales dating back to 2006 to determine values.    They divided the area into 3 major groups with 27 subgroups.  Frankly, I don't believe that using 5 year old sales in a market such as we have is a reliable method. True, they say they adjust for changes in price over time, but when you look at the appraisals that have come out of it, it has poor results.  In addition, this method does not look at many differences in properties that can be done using the sales comparison previously used.  According to TCAD, they don't look at factors such as garages:  "An example would be two ranch style home sales.  Both have the same square footage and age, but one has a garage and the other does not.  It is generally impractical in mass appraisal due to the quantity of sales to individually analyze each attribute adjustment."  Yes, take two identical houses, one with a garage and one without, and TCAD thinks they are worth the same.  These folks sure have a good grasp of valuing real property, don't they?  As I mentioned, the appraisals I've seen so far are off the mark - they are either too high or too low.  That means we have plenty of folks who will be happy and plenty of folks who are unhappy.  TCAD ought to be trying to properly value each property, not hope they get a good average.

The Steiner Ranch resident who brought new valuation to my attention also told me that today TCAD had only one appraisal who could discuss the Steiner Ranch area.  He essentially told her that they will not look at individual comps because they isn't how they valued the area.  That's just peachy, isn't it?  Apparently because they used a sophisticated mass method, you can't protest with your simple three to five property comparison.  Why just compare to a few very similar properties when you can compare to hundreds of non-similar properties, right?  I guess everyone is just supposed to whip up a multiple regression analysis method of their own and refute using that.  So it sounds like the informal protests will not work this year and you'll have to go in front of the board (which, to me, is a joke, but I digress).

Again, I plan to attempt to meet with a TCAD appraiser on Monday.  I will invite them to send a representative to the workshop on Tuesday.  This is obviously a developing situation so as I learn more I will share.  I will also correct any discrepancies if any are found in what I've already written.  Feel free to post comments below regarding this, especially if you have been to TCAD already as I would love to hear what others are being told.