Patrick Brown, Real Estate Consultant, Inc.

01/31/2025

2024 PROPERTY TAX PAYMENT DEADLINE IS TODAY

As I have been working on my late protests, binding arbitrations and lawsuits, I am reminded that the 2024 property tax season is coming to a close with the 2024 property tax bill deadline today. Our last regular season protests were finalized in Comal County this week, a nursing home and an RV park.

The property tax bills are published in October. Many taxpayers choose to pay their property taxes by December 31, in order to be able to deduct them for federal income tax purposes in 2024. However, if you are one of those people who have not paid your property taxes yet, please make sure you do so by today, January 31, so there are no penalties and interest attached to them. Make sure you make your payments in person, or get to the post office to get the payment in the mail today, guarantying a date stamp for today. Using certified mail would not be a bad idea, as lawsuits, arbitrations and late protest hearings require that your taxes are paid timely or those cases will no longer be viable, and will be dismissed.

Texas law attaches a 6% penalty starting in February, and adds another 6% penalty in July, when the penalties cap at a total of 12%. Additionally, interest of 1% is added each month to the bill. The interest and penalties start on the first of the month, so the interest and penalties are the same for the first of the month as they are for the last day of the month.

Below I have an example for a taxpayer who owes $10,000 initially, and the penalties that accrue in February and July of this year and the monthly interest charges.

The tax bill for February of this year includes the 6% initial penalty, plus the 1% interest for one month’s interest

February, 2025

Original Property Tax Bill $10,000
Penalty (6%) 600
Interest (1% per month) 100
Total Due $10,700

The tax bill for July of this year includes a 12% penalty, plus 5 months of interest at 1% monthly.

July, 2025

Original Property Tax Bill $10,000
Penalty (6%) 1,200
Interest (1% per month) 600
Total Due $11,800


The tax bill for February of 2026 is a whopping 25% higher than the original bill. Although the penalties have stopped increasing and remain at 12%, the property taxes in this case are now in the thirteenth month of delinquency, and have 13% of interest included. Also, your 2025 property tax bill would be delinquent at this time if not yet paid.

February, 2026

Original Property Tax Bill $10,000
Penalty (6%) 1,200
Interest (1% per month) 1,300
Total Due $12,500

CONTACT INFORMATION FOR CENTRAL TEXAS COUNTIES

Bastrop

Tax Assessor Collector: Ellen Owens
211 Jackson Street
Post Office Box 579
Bastrop, Texas 78602
(512) 581-7161
[email protected]

Hays

Tax Assessor Collector: Jennifer Escobar
712 South Stagecoach Trail #1120
San Marcos, Texas 78666
(512) 393-5545
(512) 393-5547

Travis

Tax Assessor Collector: Celia Israel
2433 Ridgepoint Drive
Austin, Texas 78754-5231
(512) 854-9473
TaxOffice@Travis CountyTX.gov

Williamson

Tax Assessor Collector: Larry Gaddes
904 South Main Street
Georgetown, Texas 78626
(512) 943-1601
[email protected]

We are already signing up people for the 2025 property tax season. We appreciate our existing customers, our new customers and our future customers. As we close out the 2024 property tax season, we are pleased to report a 41% annual increase in properties served over the last six years and we are now serving 28 Texas counties and growing. Give us a call if you want to be included with our satisfied commercial, residential and land customers who are trusting us with their property tax consulting needs.

01/31/2024

2023 PROPERTY TAX PAYMENT DEADLINE IS TODAY

As I have been working on my late protests and binding arbitration, I am reminded that the 2023 property tax season is coming to a close with the 2023 property tax bill deadline TODAY.

The property tax bills are published in October. Many taxpayers choose to pay their property taxes by December 31, in order to be able to deduct them for federal income tax purposes. However, if you are one of those people who have not paid your property taxes yet, please make sure you do by January 31, so there are no penalties and interest attached to them. Wednesday, today, is the last day you can pay your 2023 property taxes without penalty. Texas law attaches a 6% penalty starting in February, and adds another 1% monthly penalty until July, when the penalties cap at a total of 12%. Additionally, interest of 1% per month is added to the bill. The interest and penalties start on the first of the month, so the interest and penalties are the same for February 1 as they are for February 28, but remember that March 1 will bring an additional 1% penalty and 1% of interest. Down below I have an example for a taxpayer who owes $10,000 initially, and the costs of penalties and interest that accrue in February and June of this year, and by February next year.

EXAMPLE

The tax bill for February of this year includes the 6% initial penalty, plus the 1% interest for one month’s interest.

February, 2024

Original Property Tax Bill $10,000
Penalty (6%) 600
Interest (1% per month) 100
Total Due $10,700

The tax bill for June of this year includes a 12% penalty, plus 6 months of interest at 1% monthly.

July, 2024

Original Property Tax Bill $10,000
Penalty (12%) 1,200
Interest (1% per month) 600
Total Due $11,800



The tax bill for February of 2023 is at a whopping 25% higher than the original bill. Although the penalties have stopped increasing, and remain at 12%, the property taxes in this case are now in the thirteenth month of delinquency, and they have 13% of interest included in it.

February, 2025

Original Property Tax Bill $10,000
Penalty (12%) 1,200
Interest (1% per month) 1,300
Total Due $12,500

TRAVIS COUNTY: PAYING THEM TIMELY

Travis County has a convenient way to pay be eCheck. Those payments can be made for $1 extra at TravisCountyTax.org. You can also still mail a check, but make sure it is delivered to a postal clerk and request a hand cancellation to ensure it's postmarked no later than January 31, 2024.
Property owners who cannot pay in full and want to set up a payment plan can review their payment options and apply online at the tax office website, TravisCountyTax.org. Owners with a senior, disabled or disabled veteran homestead exemption can sign up to pay taxes in four installments without penalty and interest charges.
CONTACT INFORMATION FOR LOCAL COUNTIES
Travis
Tax Assessor Collector: Bruce Elfant
2433 Ridgepoint Dr., Austin, TX 78754-5231
(512) 854-9473
Tax Office@Travis CountyTX.gov
Williamson
Tax Assessor Collector: Larry Gaddes
904 South Main Street
Georgetown, Texas 78626
512-943-1601
[email protected]
Tax Assessor-Collector: Jenifer O’Kane, PCC
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 512.393.5545
Fax: 512.393.5547
712 S Stagecoach Trail, Ste. 1120
San Marcos, Texas 78666

Bastrop
Tax Assessor Collector: Ellen Owens
211 Jackson Street
Post Office Box 579
Bastrop, Texas 78602
(512) 581-7161
[email protected]

TAX SAVINGS FOR HOMEOWNERS
Homeowners may notice a significantly lower tax bill this year thanks to the increased homestead exemption for school taxes approved by the Texas Legislature and voters. The average tax bill for property owners with a homestead exemption decreased by $658. Homeowners with a senior or disability exemption received even greater reductions, averaging $1,351


We are already signing up people for the 2024 property tax season, and we continue to appreciate our existing customers, our new customers, and the future customers that we are adding. As we close out the 2023 property tax season, we are pleased to report a 31% increase in properties last year, and we are now serving 28 Texas counties and growing. Give us a call if you want to be included with our satisfied commercial, residential and land customers who are trusting us with their property tax consulting needs.

05/16/2023

Patrick Brown, Real Estate Consultant Incorporated
4101 Lago Viento
Austin, Texas 78734
(512) 284-8830
[email protected]
[email protected]

2023 PROTEST SEASON BEGINS

Good morning all,

As I write this, it is almost 1:30 p.m., and the start of another wonderful day. The last 45 days is the sprint, signing people up, and the next 75 days is the marathon getting these protests processed.

We have stopped, for the most part, adding new clients for the year. Off the top of my head, there are a few days left to protest in Bell County, Burnet County, Hays County and Milam County. I think I saw that one of the Travis batches had later protest dates, which seemed to be condominiums, to my recollection. If you have not gotten your protests sent in to these counties, you might still have some opportunities to. If you have protested, but are feeling precarious about your chances, we can take over your protest. We can also take over your protest if you have gone to an informal hearing with poor results, and want us to represent you at a formal hearing. Finally, we can represent you if you were not pleased with an offer you received on your online protest, and want to proceed to the formal. Give us a call to discuss it.

I want to thank all of our existing clients for continuing to patronize us, as well as our new clients that we are welcoming. We have added hundreds of accounts of all types, including industrial, retail, office, multifamily, land, ag as well as residential. We have increased by another 32% this year, which follow back to back increases of 35% for both 2021 and 2022.

I want to thank our larger referral partners, including Darren Quick, Laurie Wier and Mitzi Bedell with the Don Quick Companies, Bill Gammon, Baslan Omar with Bread Basket, Scott MacDonald, Michael Estes, Jon Denton with North Forest, Bob Roberts, Wes Ritchie, Shawn Kahn, Kim Treadwell, Laura Blessing, Dina Dillard, Christina Suarez, Zaza Frasca, Susan Nogues, Dr. Robert Lewis, Adam Awad, George Faddoul, Chase Burris and Holly Carson to name a few.

Mostly I want to thank my beautiful wife Cheryl who makes it all happen behind the scenes.

This is the official page of Patrick Brown, Real Estate Consultant. We are the Lake Travis real estate experts. Austin-area realtor since 1981

01/27/2023

2022 PROPERTY TAX PAYMENT DEADLINE LOOMS

As I have been working on my late protests and binding arbitration, I am reminded that the 2022 property tax season is coming to a close with the 2022 property tax bill deadline looming.

The property tax bills are published in October. Many taxpayers choose to pay their property taxes by December 31, in order to be able to deduct them for federal income tax purposes. However, if you are one of those people who have not paid your property taxes yet, please make sure you do by January 31, so there are no penalties and interest attached to them. Next Tuesday is the last day you can pay your 2022 property taxes without penalty. Texas law attaches a 6% penalty starting in February, and adds another 1% monthly penalty until July, when the penalties cap at a total of 12%. Additionally, interest of 1% per month is added to the bill. The interest and penalties start on the first of the month, so the interest and penalties are the same for February 1 as they are for February 28, but remember that March 1 will bring an additional 1% penalty and 1% of interest. Down below I have an example for a taxpayer who owes $10,000 initially, and the costs of penalties and interest that accrue in February and June of this year, and by February next year.

The tax bill for February of this year includes the 6% initial penalty, plus the 1% interest for one month’s interest.

February, 2023

Original Property Tax Bill $10,000
Penalty (6%) 600
Interest (1% per month) 100
Total Due $10,700

The tax bill for June of this year includes a 12% penalty, plus 6 months of interest at 1% monthly.

July, 2023

Original Property Tax Bill $10,000
Penalty (12%) 1,200
Interest (1% per month) 600
Total Due $11,800


The tax bill for February of 2023 is at a whopping 25% higher than the original bill. Although the penalties have stopped increasing, and remain at 12%, the property taxes in this case are now in the thirteenth month of delinquency, and they have 13% of interest included in it.

February, 2024

Original Property Tax Bill $10,000
Penalty (12%) 1,200
Interest (1% per month) 1,300
Total Due $12,500

We are already signing up people for the 2023 property tax season, and we continue to appreciate our existing customers, our new customers, and the future customers that we are adding. As we close out the 2022 property tax season, we are pleased to report a 35% increase in properties last year, and we are now serving 24 Texas counties and growing. Give us a call if you want to be included with our satisfied commercial, residential and land customers who are trusting us with their property tax consulting needs.

01/16/2023

SHIFTING PROPERTY TAX BURDENS

We are winding down the 2022 property tax year as the deadline for a timely property tax payment is a little over two weeks away. This gives us a chance to reconcile who was most impacted by last year’s incredible bull market in real estate.

What happened first was percentage increases for the median priced house increased around the state ranging from the low teens in most larger metropolitan areas to median price home increases as high as 43.17% in Williamson County, and 56.67% in Hays County. Travis County had a more modest 24.17% increase.

What happened next is the appraisal districts did their job and valued the increases based on market sales information. Most appraisal districts this year started using appreciation rates to analyze sales, so if a property sold for $500,000 on January 1, 2021, then it was used as a comparable sale at $600,000, if a 20% appreciation rate was found in the data and applied.

Over long periods of time, the average appreciation rate has been around 5% for houses in the central Texas area, at least. Houses in Williamson County, for instance, increased in value by 15.83% the previous year. This means that (15,83% plus 43.17%) nearly 12 years of appreciation were compacted into two years.

Who did this affect? The homesteaded properties we represent in almost every case had homestead cap limits on them, and some of them had the caps from the previous year. Homesteaded properties are limited to a maximum of a 10% increase each year by law. Rental properties, by contrast, increased in many cases between 10% to 55%, and in isolated cases, much more. Commercial, apartment and land categories are unprotected, and were subject to increases, but the increases were generally less extreme than the rent houses that were affected.

The table below shows county tax rates for the larger counties that we represent.


COUNTY 2022 RATE 2021 RATE CHANGE
Harris 0.343730 0.376930 -8.81%
Dallas 0.217946 0.227946 -4.39%
Tarrant 0.224000 0.229000 -2.18%
Bexar 0.276331 0.276331 0.00%
Travis 0.318239 0.357365 -10.95%
Fort Bend 0.451200 0.452800 -0.35%
Williamson 0.375608 0.440846 -14.80%
Brazoria 0.341106 0.386530 -11.75%
Bell 0.316000 0.368000 -14.13%
Nueces 0.301445 0.311483 -3.22%
Galveston 0.376030 0.424500 -11.42%
McLennan 0.376355 0.425000 -11.45%

Note that the counties that had tax rates decrease by more than 10% will result in a lower tax burden for homesteaded properties. The tax burden this last year has shifted to non-homesteaded properties, particularly rent houses.

Disclaimer: This is not every tax rate a property is subject to. Schools, cities, emergency services districts, municipal utility districts and others will affect your tax burden. To include all of those would expand this paper to 50 pages or more easily. This one comparison was done primarily to suggest similar shifts are going on in most jurisdictions, except school districts which have a cap on their basic tax rate. What you should be able to do is the similar math for each jurisdiction on your property to see where your tax burdens are going to.

I have always believed that if values go up, say 15%, then the tax rates should go down 15%, but rarely is this the case. If you compare this year’s tax bill to last year’s, it is usually higher.

Where it is headed: Values in the single family sector have retraced their increases of last year, due to mortgage interest rate increases, and should be down 5% to 10% in most counties this year. This will provide relief for most of the landlords who hold single family, duplex and condominium properties. Households with homestead caps may experience 10% increases this year, unless their jurisdictions reduce their tax rates again. Commercial properties will definitely be feeling some upward pressure, due to the shift within the categories in property taxes.

Property taxes are the highest single line item for a commercial or rental property expenses. Give us a call if you would like some great property tax advice.

05/19/2022

Most of the deadlines for timely protests have expired, but there are a number of the more rural Texas counties that have deadlines extending into June. So, in many cases, it is too late to protest now. However, if you have protested, and are feeling uncertain about the potential results, please give us a call, and we can take over your protest for you, preparing and submitting your evidence, attending your hearing and resolving your protest.

We are pleased to announce a 32% increase in accounts this year, and are enjoying conversing with all of our new clients, as well as our long time customers. We have a presence in 23 Texas Counties this year. We continue to serve clients in the major Texas counties of Bexar, Dallas, Harris and Travis. We added properties in three new counties this year: Lampasas, Brazoria and Coryell. The new properties include medical office buildings, shopping centers, convenience stores, office warehouses, fourplexes, duplexes, condominiums, ranches, and commercial and residential land. We also added quite a few houses, particularly rental houses for a number of landlords we serve.

Again, thanks for your support, and give us a call at 512-284-8830 if you have any questions concerning property taxes.

05/15/2021

Thanks for considering Patrick Brown, Real Estate Consulting for your property tax consulting needs. The following letter gives you a brief introduction into what we do, who we are, and our commitment to you.

OUR PRACTICE

We have a family owned, boutique, concierge company run by a husband and wife team. We pride ourselves on over the top commitment to quality and customer service. Our practice is involved in all aspects of real estate, but our primary emphasis is in property tax consulting. In our relatively young company, have been specifically practicing property tax consulting for six years. We have grown by an amazing 50% in 2019, and 100% in 2020. We are on track to grow 65% in 2021. We now represent houses, duplexes, mobile homes, residential condominiums, apartments, warehouses, office warehouses, flex space, office buildings, veterinarian clinics, medical office buildings, surgery centers, office condominiums, convenience stores, shopping centers, retail buildings, fast food restaurants, restaurants, auto dealerships, motels, wineries, farming and ranching, residential and commercial lots, and land. Our properties are located in twenty counties: Aransas, Bastrop, Bell, Bexar, Blanco, Burnet, Concho, Dallas, Ellis, Fort Bend, Guadalupe, Hays, Harris, Llano, McClennan, Nueces, Taylor, Travis, Waller and Williamson. Our clients include landlords, office building developers, convenience store operators, fast food restaurant owners, and homeowners, to name a few.

OUR PEOPLE

Patrick Brown’s responsibilities include marketing, researching and inspecting properties, preparing hearing evidence, testifying at hearings, preparing binding arbitration evidence and testifying. He has held a Real Estate Broker’s License for 40 years, holds a General Real Estate Appraiser’s license, is a Member, Appraisal Institute (MAI), and has a Property Tax Consulting License. He has 16 years of experience in mass appraisal at the Lubbock, Williamson and Travis Central Appraisal Districts, and served as a testifying witness at all three. His final public position was Chief Appraiser of the Travis Central Appraisal District. As a Commercial Appraiser, he oversaw all of the office building, lodging, recreational and downtown land properties in Austin, with over $5,000,000,000 in value. He has a B.B.A., With Honors, in Finance and Real Estate and an M.B.A. in Real Estate from the University of Texas at Austin.

Cheryl Brown’s responsibilities include researching residential properties, accounting, billing and income tax preparation. She has been in numerous aspects of business during her professional career, including working at a credit union, selling stocks and bonds when she held Series 7 and 63 licenses, selling insurance, working in the medical records field, in bar management, and she managed a family owned tanning salon. She was also a math teacher for 9 years. Cheryl has a B.B.A. in Finance from Baylor.

OUR PHILOSOPHY

We charge a contingency fee based on our property tax savings for our clients. We spend the time researching, inspecting, driving, waiting at the appraisal district, and presenting information for hearings. If we are successful, our clients are charged a portion of the tax savings. We do not charge admin fees, service charges or retainers of $40 to $150, like other property tax consultants do. Nor do we charge for reductions in appraised value that do not result in property tax savings for clients, such as might occur for homesteaded properties or properties with an agricultural valuation. Some property tax consultants charge for reductions in appraised value, even if they do not result in savings for the owners. The only situation where a client could be charged is if they fire us after we have prepared evidence for a hearing, but before we have presented the evidence. Incidentally, you can fire us at any time, if in writing. We want our customers to be pleased with our service.

Give us a call, and let us know how we can help you.

05/07/2021

Hey, are you tired of trying to find an investor deal in Austin that works? Consider Baytown, Texas. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Baytown, it has several refineries in it, and the prices are right. I am marketing a house that is a 2,941 SF, 4 bedroom, 3 1/2 bath for $289,000. This house in a well located area of Austin would be $500,000. It has a mother-in-law floorplan with a separate entrance that could be enclosed by putting up a 4' wall. The property has a swimming pool. There are a lot of refinery workers that come into town and work for 60 days on assignment. I think someone could buy it and live in the main area and supplement their mortgage with an AirBNB rental for the mother-in -law portion of the property. Give me a call at 512-639-6042 for more details.

09/10/2018

Please take a moment to learn a little more about how our clients feel about our service. We would love to provide you with the same, elevated service.

08/30/2018

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