Year-End Discounts, Cancellations In Texas
The American Statesman reports from Texas. “Central Texas home builders have been offering plenty of year-end discounts and bonuses to boost sales, but that doesn’t mean that the Austin area housing market is cooling or that prices are falling. Sales to West Coast buyers could slow as investors and people seeking to move to Austin find it harder to sell or take equity out of their homes.”
“But outside forces are not expected to have a significant impact on Central Texas.”
“Last spring, Dr. Susan King is counting signed a contract to buy a new 4,800-square-foot house in Cedar Park. ‘If we would have signed now, I think it would have been more expensive, because the prices have gone up,’ she said.”
“The base price for the Wilshire Homes model home she chose when she signed was $440,000. Now it’s about $460,000.”
“Big, publicly traded national production builders such as D.R. Horton, KB Home and Pulte Homes dominate the Central Texas market. They may need to raise prices in strong markets such as Austin as they watch profits decline in many other parts of the country. ‘The local builders are facing tremendous pressures to produce because the market is slowing in other parts of the country,’ said Dick Rathgeber, a longtime local developer.”
“‘Now that their margins are not as high in those coastal markets, they are looking to the other divisions including Texas to be more profitable and show better margins,’ said Eldon Rude, director of the Austin office of Metrostudy. ‘One of the ways the public builders are likely to do that is to carry less speculative inventory. We’re seeing them have a strong push to reduce their inventory levels during the end of the year.’”
“Some builders have offered end-of-the-year discounts to spur sales. In mid-December, for example, Pulte was offering discounts as high as $40,000 on every one of its homes in Central Texas.”
“They also have offered cushy incentives to real estate agents who find buyers for their houses. Beginning in October, some agents received daily e-mails about various incentives, such as 10 percent commission, rather than the typical 3 to 6 percent, on certain houses in communities such as Leander.’”
“Slowdowns in other once-hot markets, such as the West Coast, could reduce the number of investors buying homes and moving here as it becomes harder to sell or get equity of properties elsewhere. Working late at the office of Austin-based Streetman Homes recently, founder Randy Streetman fielded three calls from interested California buyers after 8 p.m.”
“West Coast residents with plenty of cash from selling their homes are still buying in Central Texas, he said. But the recent housing downturn there has led to a spike in contract cancellations here.”
“First American Loan Performance estimates approximately 15 percent of new mortgages in the Austin area last year were for investor homes purchases, while nearly 8 percent were for second homes. That’s up from nearly 14 percent and 6 percent, respectively, in 2005.”
“The median sales price of an existing house was $174,000 for the first 11 months of 2006, up 7 percent from the year before. The median price of a new house in the third quarter of this year was $212,527, a nearly 15 percent jump from the same time last year. Rising prices also could put home ownership out of reach for many buyers.”
“‘Generally speaking, housing prices are growing about twice as fast as wages,’ said Brian Kelsey, for the Capital Area Council of Government’s Center for Regional Development.’”
From KEYE TV. “Market analysts say Texas usually ranks dead last for appreciation in home values. As parts of the country have seen 30 and 50 percent appreciation, a slump wasn’t hard to imagine. While most of the country has been slumping, Austin set a new home sales record this year.”
“That record is 16,000 new homes sold. Market analysts say new home sales are one reason it’s a sellers’ market. There were 29,000 real estate listings in Austin in 2006. Median home price went from $181,000 in ‘05 to $196,000 this year. And developers built 16,700 new homes.”
“‘Four years ago, we had a record number of starts with 11,000. Now we’re around 17,000,’ said Mark Sprague with Residential Strategies, Inc. ‘To equate that, that’s the number of starts Denver, Colorado had and that’s a city of 3.5 million.’”
“Sprague says buy now if you’re in the market because you’ll pay more in 30 days and considerably more in three months.”
“Sprague says his firm counted almost 3,000 new homes finished and vacant. He says there’s been a bit of a slow-down in homes under $200,000.”
“Residential Strategies says Austin, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio are in the top 10 in the country for percentage of foreclosures. Analysts attribute that to more lenders in those cities taking a chance on buyers with lower credit scores.”
“Central Texas home builders have been offering plenty of year-end discounts and bonuses to boost sales, but that doesn’t mean that the Austin area housing market is cooling or that prices are falling.”
I thought the main point of “discount” was to hide the fact that the market is cooling and prices are falling?
“Sales to West Coast buyers could slow as investors and people seeking to move to Austin find it harder to sell or take equity out of their homes.”
So it sounds like a sudden dearth of West Coast flippers could significantly affect the Austin market?
“But outside forces are not expected to have a significant impact on Central Texas.”
So it sounds like a sudden dearth of West Coast flippers could not significantly affect the Austin market? Me confused…
I think it’s the Stateman that is confused. How can these folk fail to recognize what is happening? Hurry and buy now!
Were there 17,000 jobs created in Austin last year? The national builders have been turning pastures into seas of houses for years and now they are cutting prices up to $40k.
‘Generally speaking, housing prices are growing about twice as fast as wages,’ said Brian Kelsey’
Where have we heard this before?
‘First American Loan Performance estimates approximately 15 percent of new mortgages in the Austin area last year were for investor homes purchases, while nearly 8 percent were for second homes. That’s up from nearly 14 percent and 6 percent, respectively, in 2005.’
Property taxes are high, so it is likely these ’second homes’ are spec buys also.
The property taxes will kill these fools. There is no prop 13 here. My sister pays $6K for her $200K house. That lady with the $440K house will pay almost $13K in property taxes. I can’t imagine many houses in Texas are worth $400K unless they are in exclusive neighborhoods.
How many ‘exclusive’ neighborhoods in Cedar Park are new?
I see Craigslist ads of people trying to get $200+/square foot in Hyde Park and Tarrytown now. Ridiculous.
Dont forget about Rockwall ( lol).
Hey, Garland has their new shopping mall!! Don’t forget that! It was just getting started when I left in ‘04. Couldn’t be a better place!
It’s nice but not a good idea to have a towncenter type mall in Texas. It’s too hot to walk around in the summer and too cold in the winter and too rainy in the spring.
You’re right - most of the people claiming that the Austin (or Texas as a whole) housing market is underpriced are ignoring the fact that we have very very high property taxes. It really kills the bubbly feeling from appreciation when you get your tax bill every year. Also, when you look at total payment (not just P and I) we are much closer to the national average than most people realize.
Here’s the thing though: houses outside of Austin cost as little as 65-70k.So if you wanted to commute in, living there is still compareably cheaper. At the same time, I find it a little disturbing that the number of listings are using 3 year old vintage California flipper language in the text, like this 65k gem with the headline: ” Investors, flip this house!!” http://austin.craigslist.org/rfs/253972013.html
I also think a lot of Californians are salivating over the prospects that they can afford to live there when in reality, The Austin city proper is still expensive ( but not compared to the whole of California). People in Ca are simply shell-shocked from horribly overprices RE and think walking into another overprices region that has a totally different economic strata will solve their issues.
And I bet they don’t do their tax homework either, calculating the total monthly cost. They just see the low purchase price and think they’re getting a deal. Here in Oregon, they were, since taxes are low. But now, prices are higher. One local developer is now listing his homes with realtors to move them… but they aren’t moving. Things are stuck around Portland, too.
Sold my Houston-Springs rental property 2 years ago…Taxes were $8,000 on a $280,000 house.
“Sales to West Coast buyers could slow as investors and people seeking to move to Austin find it harder to sell or take equity out of their homes.”
Obviously West coast sellers sold to Asian buyers who sold their Asian properties to Martians…
More proof of rolling bubble/crash. Gotta get them values up as a means to readjust tax assessments upward….. then let the values fall.
Talk about getting it jammed in your a$$.
load your musket and head to city hall
we will
http://www.fcta.org
Remember Waco? You best keep your a$$ at home lest the military intervene.
Sorry flatffplan but it will take more than your pea shooter wielding band of loonies to change things.
“Big, publicly traded national production builders such as D.R. Horton, KB Home and Pulte Homes dominate the Central Texas market. They may need to raise prices in strong markets such as Austin as they watch profits decline in many other parts of the country.”
So, GM and Ford can bail themselves out of their finacial hole by raising the price of each car to about 1.3 million. Ya, that’ll work!
This is probably the stupidest thing said that will be on the blog today. If two of my horses had gone lame the last thing I would think of is to shoot the last one.
Blah blah blah. Those houses will all come rolling back out at significant discount.
I’ve found something and am negotiating now. I’m sure that will amuse you all.
Not as much as it will terrify the negotiatee…lol
txchick –
Good luck. You remind me that my sister, who just last week told me about how she and hubby had cancelled the contract to buy a 4000 sq ft midwestern lakeside home for $300K (which appraised at $282K before considering $15K in deferred maintenance) had gone back into contract on the same home at a “reduced price” of $294K. They were afraid they would never again find another home they both liked at a price they were willing to pay.
The flipper who bought the place in foreclosure gets to pocket $46K for two months of hard searching for a GF, which is probably over one year’s worth of salary for my sister. (If inflation soon returns to 1970s levels or worse, I guess I will be the one who gets to eat crow…)
I hear ya. This would be a cash deal and the owner is the one who commissioned and built it (it’s an architect designed place). I really like it so I’m not going to be an asshole but also not going to be taken advantage of.
(If inflation soon returns to 1970s levels or worse, I guess I will be the one who gets to eat crow…)
Maybe not. We already had home inflation. The next spiral will probably be in other fixed costs (goods and services) more than housing, IMO. It all depends on credit availability, though, so you could be right.
I think you’re right, if prices don’t drop much.
High inflation means high interest rates.
House ownership price is not in CPI, only rentals.
Inflation will kill housing because every other thing, food, energy, insurance, will be higher, including interest rates (ARMS to explode). Housing will crash regardless of government spun inflation.
Ay ay ay. txchick57 falls victim to the opposition? What is the world coming to? Honestly, why are you doing this?
Haven’t owned a house in nearly 20 years. It’s a very cool place in my #1 desired location and it’s on acreage. That said, I’m not going to be taken advantage of but I’m not going to be an asshole either.
tx-chick you are going to the other side
just kidding good luck and make em sweat!
hey are you doing interest only?
lol
“It’s a very cool place in my #1 desired location and it’s on acreage.”
So, then, your emotions are involved?
“That said, I’m not going to be taken advantage of but I’m not going to be an asshole either.”
Buying at or near the top still does not leave much room for negotiation. What existing owner is going to sell a home for significantly less than the recent comps?
Shocking to read that such a housing bear is in the market, ready to become another GF.
This isn’t a suburban tract house. It’s in a small town which is mostly a second home area. Not Flagstaff but similar. Comps? Not sure what you’d compare it to. It’s on acreage and there is nothing else like it there.
What existing owner is going to sell a home for significantly less than the recent comps?
Banteringbear the answer to your question is very simple. One that needs to sell now.
HA! If I buy something in the next couple of years (and I might) I don’t know if I would have the guts to mention it on this blog.
I would. Why not? We’re here to trade information. If you can get a property you love for a small premium it is worth it. The utilization value of a home is pretty high. We can argue how much of buy vs. rent, but there is a value to buying.
That said, in my area home asking prices have dropped $300k in one year yet the ball hasn’t even begun to get rolling.
Good luck TxChick. Do you have your own blog?
Neil
Does it come with oil royalties??
No, someone else owns the mineral rights. (True in most of the West)
By executive order, the federal government now owns all mineral rights.
LOL. No, scorpion royalties.
You read this blog and you’re purchasing?
ROTFLMFAO
I think the blood bath is just starting but I wouldnt completly rule out buying. I think if you can buy with a fixed rate 30 piti payment at or very close to what rent would be than why not buy.
Because you will overpay, thanks to very aggressive price competition from Riskloves who don’t mind leveraging themselves to the hilt with I/O Option ARMs for the chance to live large for a few years in exchange for a high probability of future foreclosure. I suggest first waiting for the subprime subsidence to end before buying…
http://economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8424086
That’s okay. Knowing you, you’re likely paying what… 1x HHI?
p.s.: When’s the house-warming party? Can I bring my shepherd??
friends of ours weregoing to buy a place outside austin earlier this year for around 200k, typical cookie cutter mcmansion crap
well they chose not too and instead rent a really nice place for like
700 a month and i know they a pleased with their decision
no more land in texas? that is just ridiculous
they need the space in texas as per morgan spurlock
of super size me fame texas is home to 4 of the 10 fattest cities
in the usa
LOL, I’ll testify to that. In Dallas, the women are either model thin or fat. Not much in between. I like the jeans at Costco, they have great prices. Only one problem. They never have a pair in a size smaller than 10. Huge piles of 14, 16, etc. No 4s, no 6s.
how did i know you would not only be a smart finance person but a lady with a svelte figure
kudo’s to you and thanks for the laughs and info all year long
happy new year
Let’s get the heighth first.
5′2″ at size 4 or 6 ain’t very svelte.
5′6″ thank you very much.
Neil, I was going to do a blog until I found out how much time you have to spend keeping the spam and junk out.
Quesion: Why does a size 2 cost the same as a 16 plus? Consider double the amount of material and stitching in the super-size garments…
Plus the heavy duty rivets?
Couldn’t resist.
that’s funny!!
the ‘material’ price is pretty low (insignificant) compared to other overhead, i.e CEOs salary, options..etc, seriously, the labour, storage, transportation, middleman etc adds more to the price tag then the raw material cost.
Or why are men’s garments much cheaper when compared to a similar item of female attire?
This one is easy.
It’s the “emotional premium”. Many women buy clothes to make a statement, feel better, etc,etc. Most men buy clothes to a)stay warm and/or not be naked and occasionally b) make an positive impression for work. Price is a much bigger factor in men’s clothing. The minority of women like myself who buy clothes to simply stay warm face the problem of universally higher prices (a problem not unlike the housing bubble..).
i am a former garment industry person and in some cases the larger size clothing does in fact cost more
apparel is one of the most marked up things you can buy
i used to mfr for jc penny and they would price stuff at say $36 which they would mark down 20% the day it hit the floor so the sheepie feel oh i am getting a deal!
if they wait a little while that same garment will cost $12-$18 in a short time, meanwhile jcp is paying around $5 each, but in jcp defense they are very strict on the mfr’s of their clothing so they do not get caught up in a kathie lee type scandal. most apparel is marked up 300% so those
40% off sales are still profitable for the big retailers
meanwhile it is made in far off lands by people making pennies, just like almost everything else these days come to think of it
mgnyc -
what is up with the so-called closeout sales on 7th ave? Went to a couple when I used to be a fashionista, and there was only crap…I could have done better at Loehmann’s.
“Sales to West Coast buyers could slow as investors and people seeking to move to Austin find it harder to sell or take equity out of their homes”
well said! as the well at the epicenter of the bubble run dry, perhaps this speculative locus would finally die a final death.
btw, a new post on San Diego’s 4Closure Ranch is up, dedicated to all the young nesting families out there.
“btw, a new post on San Diego’s 4Closure Ranch is up, dedicated to all the young nesting families out there.”
This is going to be one of the saddest stories to come out of the bubble’s aftermath, IMO. Maybe I feel this way because I know many such families personally…
What is sad about these flippers buying a home, with a 6 month delay on the first payment they never intended to make? Isn’t that fraud?
The sad part is that young couples who just wanted to buy a home to live in where they could safely raise their families bought in the same neighborhood where supply was artificially constrained by the flipper scourge, and will feel the pain after the flippers are long gone. A picture of a McMansion supply glut has just begun to emerge (mainly on this blog!). The 20% price decline suggested by one of those 4Closure Ranch anecdotes is right in line with DataQuick’s recently reported Nov 2006 20% YOY drop for used home prices in the 92127 zip code.
“Ms. M also wanted to cash in on some 4S Ranch Gold. She purchased a 1,862 sqft home at 16xx1 CallowayDr also in late April of this year for $615,000. NOD also received on 12/13/06. Looks like another first payment mortgage default. Originally hoping to walk away even with a selling price of $630,300 in September, Ms. M in now hoping for a short sale at $559,888.”
Wowser! It seems like just last year, nothing in 4S Ranch sold below $700K. Now a flipper can’t give a home away for $560K? Ouch!
Existing sales @ 6.2 mil..
lower mortage rates were helpful.
But next mo. data will have to grapple w/ rates inching up again…
“inching up” or “lurching”?
http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/quotes.asp?sid=11421
ok, which one of you bought in the NE ?
the Northeast posted a strong 6 percent sales gain
Larry Kudlow bought there, I am sure. He lives in Goldilocks Estates.
How many of these “sales” will be canceled when Joesixpack realizes how risky the option arm is and then finds out he cannot qualify with a 30 year fixed?
this was the existing homes number - not as flakey as new homes
We need to endure one to two years worth of MSM cautionary tales about
unwitting FBs losing their homes, not to mention Congressional hearings on exotic loans before they lose all popularity.
water cooler chit-chat.
that may trump Congressional hearings, even.
Not too many watching C-Span. Deal or No Deal is just too…fascinating!
YELLING at briefcases, yeah!
Josh
you can’t make this $hit up
I have seen flippers trying to sell purchase options for new construction on Craigslist. I hope nobody buys a flippers’ bad bet like that. Let flipper eat the $5k loss.
kudlow was all gangbusters yesterday what a creep
any bull on his show is dismissed quickly
Property taxes in Austin:
$300,000 house = ~$9,500
$500,000 house = ~$16,000
and it only goes up every year.
And in Portland, OR, those taxes are $3500 and $6000, respectively. But the price of the comparable house is $600,000 and $1,000,000 - and taxes on those are $7000 and $12000 - so pick your poison… mortgage interest, or ongoing taxes.
not to mention OR has a high state income tax while TX has none.
Why property taxes so high in Austin ?
Property taxes are high in Texas because we have no state income tax. During peak earning years, it can be a really great deal. My property taxes last year were less than a third of what a 5% state income tax would have been, and 5% is low. CA and OR can have income tax brackets at 9% (VT and DC, too). Our property tax rates did go down marginally last year.
Seniors can usually get a large exemption, so for retirees earning a lot on investment income, it’s also a good deal. Low income families end up getting the shaft under this system.
The whole article smacks of ostriches with their heads in the sand.
btw, size 2 costs the same as size 16 in part because the labor cost is the same. although I am willing to bet middle man markup and distribution costs dominate mfg coss.
Yup, my sister and her husband in Austin now have property tax payments that equal their mortgage payments. That’s like having the mortgage double over the last ten years without ever taking any equity out.
Last year, I was talking to a friend’s dad who lives off of Shoal Creek in Austin. I said it must feel good to only have 2 mortgage payments left. He was like, “it doesn’t matter, my mortgage is $140 but my taxes are $1,100 a month.”
This is going on all over Texas.
10:42 PM CST on Wednesday, December 27, 2006
By BYRON HARRIS / WFAA-TV
WFAA-TV Also Online
Byron Harris reports
Misfortune is not the only reason 3500 homes are posted for foreclosure next month in North Texas. The FBI says mortgage fraud has reached epidemic proportions.
One couple, who found they were major property owners in North Texas without ever signing any papers, has felt the epidemic first-hand.
Paul Dyl and his wife Jackie live in a mobile home in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Mr. Dyl drives a well used pickup truck and their annual income is less than $30,000 a year.
While Mr. Dyl has never been to Texas and Mrs. Dyl has only been in the state once, beginning in 2004, six North Texas properties ended up in their name.
They said they knew nothing about it until they began receiving phone calls from bill collectors all over the country claiming they owed more than $2 million dollars.
“And now I’m 57 years old and I’m never going to recover,” Mr. Dyl said. “It just turned everything upside down.”
The first bank to call was what is now Fidelity Bank in Plano. The Dyls said bank president Tom Freas was among the nastiest of the callers.
“He just screamed at me one day,” Mr. Dyl said. “He said, ‘You signed these documents saying you were going to live in Texas.”
Mr. Dyl said Freas said he had actually met up with him face to face.
“And I said, ‘No, I’ve never seen you face to face,’” he said.
Anybody who has ever really met Mr. Dyl would most likely remember him since he has no right hand after losing it in an accident years ago.
“You can’t miss a hook,” he said.
The Dyls, it turns out, were victims of identity theft and mortgage fraud to the tune of more than $2 million. The checks and balances that might be expected to be in place when getting a mortgage failed, six times.
Despite the anguish the Dyls have been through, virtually everybody News 8 could find in the case claimed it was a private matter and somebody else’s fault.
Freas wouldn’t talk about the case saying, “It’s covered under the privacy act….the issue is resolved between me and my customers.”
The problem is the Dyls never were his customers.
“He got real nasty about it,” Mr. Dyl said. “And he said, ‘We give you a loan and then you can’t make the payments. What’s the deal? And I said, ‘I don’t know you people.’”
The Fidelity loan only accounts for one vacant lot in Flower Mound that had been bought in the Dyls’ name for more than $294,000. Nearly every day over the past year, they said they have discovered more as debt collectors continued to call.
A meager paper trail on a Plano house, which was bought in their name for $360,000, led partly to Benchmark Mortgage.
On its website, Benchmark touts how much money brokers can earn making loans through them. Benchmark Chief Operating Officer Stewart Hunter wouldn’t talk about the case either. However, he said the Dyls were his customer and cited the Privacy Act.
A loan application for the property bears the address of a Benchmark Mortgage “office,” which turned out to be an apartment house in Irving.
Experts say an apartment can be a mortgage office and be part of a drive to make buying a home easier to make money.
“There are people who will do deals over the phone from Florida or California having never visited the property and having never physically met the loan officer or the realtor or whatever,” said David Hamilton, a mortgage lender.
Experts say the way to prevent fraud by the various entities handling the process is by requiring the people to come in person.
The Dyls said they always sign their names using their middle initial, which was one of the indicators that their signatures were forged. One forgery apparently led to another.
David Fair, CEO of one of Dallas’ leading title companies, said mortgage fraud can snowball.
There have been so many fraudulent mortgage fraud transactions in the last two years that now someone who is a perpetrator is able to go get a previous mortgage fraud to use it to support the current mortgage fraud,” he said.
Washington Mutual, one of the nation’s largest home lenders, made four loans to someone purporting to be the Dyls for more than $800,000.
The Dyls said they receive dozens of threatening letters and even more calls.
“They were so threatening sometimes it was just fearful,” said Mrs. Dyl.
They filed a complaint to Washington Mutual, known as WaMu, in the fall of 2005. However, nothing happened until News 8 contacted the company. WaMu declined an on camera interview.
But in a statement, Brad Russell said, “It is the [mortgage] broker’s responsibility to verify the identity of the borrower” and; “WaMu is committed to working with the credit agencies, proper authorities and victims to minimize any future impact this may have on the Dyl family.”
“You guys screwed up our credit,” Dyl said. “We can’t go out and buy a car. We can’t buy nothing without all this stuff going on.”
Fair said the growth of mortgage fraud is disastrous to the real estate economy and sees one solution.
“We need to have more enforcement,” he said. “We don’t seem to have enough enforcement.”
The Dyls contacted the FBI but nothing has happened. They ultimately took their case to the Cheyenne Wyoming Police Department, which took their complaint.
They tried to hire a lawyer but most wanted $5,000 to even start a case. Now, Mike Haines of Dallas is representing them.
The Mortgage Brokers Association made a claim to a Congressional panel that they can regulate themselves without outside oversight on C-Span
unfreaking believable
i feel for these people he should take his hook hand to the underwriters of these loans, unfortunatly this is the tip of the iceberg i believe for fraud
id theft is a scary thing and i do everything to prevent it
i shred everything and divulge personal info on a as needed basis, you can never be too careful
man!… somebody is gonna go to jail for this mess…. when i got my loan a few years back the mortgage lady made such a big deal about verifying my identity and said the extra work was all thanks to the ‘Patriot Act’… (i have my reservations about the unPatriot Act, but thats a different story), regardless, its the law and it has some pretty scary clauses about the wide open jurisdiction it gives the attorney general.
It’s not the mortgage brokers job to ultimately verify identity. That is supposed to happen at escrow, and all of the important documents have to be notarized, particularly the deed. So essentially, the notary failed to ensure the person signing was who they say they were. This is very suspicious because you are required to produce government issued picture ID, and these people have seen enough of them to spot a fake. Somebody was on the take.
Happening just in Texas or happening all over the entire country?
The Houston housing market is always affected by the fact that they are always building new developments, isn’t this correct? That’s quite a consideration to make when insisting that Texas in general is going to greatly increase in value. I can’t speak for any other cities, but as we’re on our way to Houston soon, I have heard this from so many people. I do hope it stays that way for a long time to come, especially after the nightmare behind us that we experienced in Orange County.
You can count on no appreciation outside the 610 Loop in Houston.
Thank you for the tip about this.
It’s been flat as a pancake for 4 years. Which is OK with me since I plan to actually live in my house.
Same is true for Dallas and the 635. Inside the loop stays pretty solid while the prairie outside the loop is subject to the curse of more land available.
Houston (inner loop) is #10 by zip code in 2004-2005 for mortgage misrepresentation. 770xx = zip.
Question about property tax increases in Texas - Is the increase in asessed value subject to a 10% rate cap, and does the asessment clock reset when the property is sold (e.g. so if an old timer sells out will the new buyer be smacked by the full 2.5%-3% Texas property tax).
Is is no property tax cap that I know of except for senior citizens. I suppose flippers could buy and put the property under granny’s name to keep the rate lower
Here are some basics: http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/proptax/remedy06/index.html
In summary (from memory so treat this as stuff to research rather than a fact):
after having lived on the property on 1 Jan, you can obtain homestead status. This qualifies you for a cap of 10% on valuation increases.
New owner gets hit two ways:
1. new valuation (presumably near the sale price)
2. no homestead status for a year or so
My TX property taxes on a 2001 purchase jumped 25%. (re-valuation bypassing the previous owners homestead exemption capped value)
Since then, valuations tended to jump exactly 10% per year (just a coincidence, no doubt.)
The valuation didn’t go up last time, amazingly, and indeed the tax rate dropped by about a tenth of a percent for 2006.
Another item pertinent to some situations: the Homestead is treated as community property.
Like asking the lady at the Dollar Store, “Why do you come here to shop?”, because I have to dress-up when I shop at Wal-Mart. Please woman, don’t go shopping with rollers in your hair or wear flip-flops…