Southwest Austin | Dripping Springs - May 2022

PROTESTING PRICES Homeowners who disagree with their home valuation can protest it with the county. In 2020, many Travis County properties remained at the same appraised value due to disputes over market data used to analyze properties.

Hays County rose by 44.53%, from $312,248 in 2021 to $451,296, accord- ing to Hays County Appraisal data. Tim Landy, an Austin Realtor with Twelve Rivers Realty, said the values are in line with what he has been see- ing in the housing market. “The market right now is a lot like what we saw last year,” Landy said. “There is extremely low inventory, and the buyers are outpacing our inventory by four or five times.” TCAD Chief Appraiser Marya Crigler said the rising home prices are a sim- ple side effect of supply and demand. The Austin area has seen an influx of technology jobs with Tesla moving to Southeast Austin and Apple and Sam- sung announcing large investments in the area. Austin’s job market and economy bounced back quickly from pandemic losses, according to city data, partly because of new employ- ers and an influx of new residents. Additionally, housing inventory levels have also been at record lows. In March, Travis County had 0.6 months of housing inventory, accord- ing to Austin Board of Realtors data. Hays had 0.7. “We are at a point now where we are not measuring [housing supply] in terms of months; we’re not measuring it in terms of weeks; we’re measuring it in terms of days,” Crigler said. “So

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county data, experts are warning res- idents not to panic until homeowners receive their tax bills in October, as tax breaks and new tax rates set by municipalities to limit an increase in their tax burden will mean most residents will not see as high of an increase on their tax bill. In Texas, homeowners are eligible for a homestead exemption on their primary residence. That exemption includes local tax benefits and a cap that limits a property’s taxable value to no more than a 10% increase each year. To earn that cap, residents had to have lived in their home for at least a year as of Jan. 1 of the year the tax value is assessed. Unprecedented appraisals This year’s valuations show a record-high increase, according to Hays and Travis County data. The median appraised home value in Travis County increased 54% from $411,261 to $632,208 in 2022. Previ- ously, values have increased an aver- age of 13% year over year if factoring in the most recent year, or roughly 7%-8% excluding last year’s outlying increase, according to data from the Travis Central Appraisal District. Residential market values across

Travis County

Hays County

150K

+13.8%

140K

130K

120K

-11.3%

30K

20K

10K

0

2019 SOURCES: HAYS COUNTY APPRAISAL DISTRICT, TRAVIS COUNTY APPRAISAL DISTRICT/ COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER 2020

2021

The average Austin homeowner’s tax payments increased 0.6% despite a median property value increase of 16% last year because local entities have to adjust their tax rates to limit their tax income. DID YOU KNOW?

there’s a real supply shortage but still high demand.” Understanding the bill Adam Perdue, an economist with the Texas Real Estate Research Cen- ter, said there are a lot of misconcep- tions about how property taxes work. The main reason for the confusion, he said, is because property taxes do not normally increase this sharply, so people are paying more attention than before. The first misconception he expe- riences is people not believing their value actually increased at that rate. “Everyone is used to pretty con- sistent taxes,” Perdue said. “The fed- eral government doesn’t adjust taxes every year. Sales tax doesn’t change every year.” Because of this, he said property tax bills can come as a shock.

Perdue said that while there is room for error, many people are seeing increases in line with their area. “I’ve gotten to look at what the appraisal districts do and what the counties do, and I couldn’t do it bet- ter,” Perdue said. “That is not to say that they didn’t get a particular prop- erty wrong, but in aggregate, they seem to get it right.” Perdue said another misconception he sees is that an increase in the tax- able value in someone’s home will translate into a proportional increase in the person’s tax bills.

Homeowners who purchased their homes in 2021 will not have their taxable value capped until 2023. TAXABLE VALUATION CAP

CALCULATING PROPERTY TAXES The assessed value of a property is only half of the equation used to calculate the property taxes a homeowner owes. The other half is the tax rate. The following tax rates apply to the 2021-2022 tax rates. ASSESSED VALUE X TOTAL TAX RATE/100

ENTITY*

TAX VALUE

$0.1500

Dripping Springs:

$0.3574

Travis County:

$0.3629

Hays County:

$0.5410

City of Austin:

= PROPERTY TAXES OWED

$1.0617

Austin ISD:

SOURCE: CITY OF AUSTIN, HAYS COUNTY/ COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER

$1.3103

Dripping Springs ISD:

*THIS LIST IS NONCOMPREHENSIVE AND DOES NOT INCLUDE MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICTS OR EMERGENCY SERVICES DISTRICTS.

DID YOU KNOW?

In 2019, state lawmakers passed legislation capping the amount of revenue local entities can make in property taxes from existing properties as 3.5% for cities and counties and 2.5% for schools.

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COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER • COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM

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