Well, my hearing with the Dallas Central Appraisal District [DCAD] didn't result in a lower appraisal, as most people had indicated. I went there armed with the "neighborhood comps" (record of sales of nearby comparable homes) but it turns out one was a foreclosure (sold lower than the others) which skewed the results.
Arbitration is a very inexact process, yet it's all done within 15 minutes. You arrive, stand behind a podium about 1 meter from a 3-judge panel and one person from the DCAD, and have 5 minutes to present your case. I thought mine was sound; my home is valued nearly 20% higher than my neighbors and is the highest valued on the street. Every year (except one) since I bought the house, the appraised value has been raised by the 10% statutory maximum, which just isn't realistic.
At the end of my 5 minutes, the DCAD representative has 5 minutes to present her side (they have a nifty application which shows your neighborhood, with the lots of recent sales color-coded, with a database lookup which shows price per square foot, whether you have a pool, and the general condition of your house). The condition can vary from [very good] to [good] to [average] to [fair] to [do humans really live there?]. This evalation is subjective, done by a DCAD employee from the street in front of your home (probably the same person who took the house photo).
Then, you're allowed a short rebuttal of any issues introduced by DCAD, and then the panel decides what (if anything) to do. In my case, they reduced the square footage by 40 square feet (!) due to an error on the measurements, but did nothing else. In hindsight, it wasn't even worth the gasoline it took to drive there.
Indeed, there are no structural issues and I have maintained the house (even added value in several interior instances) so I probably got off easy. But don't tell them I said so.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment