COLLEGE STATION, Texas — When assessing a home's worth, property appraisers use a specific method to figure out the value of a home when it's about to go onto the market.
Katie Ruffino is a relator at Cherry Ruffino's team of Coldwell Bank who sat down with KAGS to discuss how the latest passing of a new bill could help homeowners.
According to Ruffino, property tax is the assessed value of your property and/or home. That's what appraisers use to determine how much your property is worth.
"The appraisal district has their own appraisers that come up with the values. That software spits out a value of your home," said Ruffino. "The senate passed to reduce the homestead cap from 10% to five percent which actually would save the average homeowner about $375 a year."
After home prices soared as COVID's effect on the nation began to wane, Ruffino said some prices are leveling out. However, she's pushing for people to fight for their homes.
"These county districts are gonna price people out of their homes, the deal with property taxes is to always protest," she said.
Ruffino also shared how those prices are bound to go up unless people take action.
"Most mortgages escrow the taxes so your monthly payment could go up," she said.
Ruffino said if you protest by May 15, you can fight against the changes, which is something that she recommends to do. In fact, a new study showed that Texas is ranked the fifth ranked state for residents paying more on property taxes.
However, it also reports how residents' effective property tax rate has decreased. A Today's homeowner expert gave her insight as to why.
"The effective tax rate is the average property tax bill divided by the median home value, houses in California are so much more expensive than they are in Texas," said homeowner expert Hailey Nuff.
The homeowner expert also said it's a promising future for those looking for a home as well because what goes up, must come down, which will ultimately be to the advantage of homeowners.
"I think mortgage rates are so high right now that housing prices almost has to calm down in order to get people in the market," Neff said.
While both Ruffino and Neff agree that only time will tell with the housing market, they push people to reassess what's valuable to them.