If you’re a homeowner, chances are you’ll face this issue now or sometime in the future: You receive notice that the “Fair Market Evaluation” for your home has just taken a big jump, and you feel that the number is too high.

This year my home appraisal rose considerably compared to the year before. Fortunately, with two hours of legwork and a short meeting at City Hall, the increase was cut by 42%. And I didn’t even hire an appraiser.

This exercise was a first for me. And I learned a lot in the process. While your appraisal process may differ, this post should still be a worthwhile read if find yourself in a similar situation.

HOW THINGS WORK

Through this process I learned that, at least where I live, there are several departments involved in the property-tax-billing process:

- Working behind the scenes is the County Appraisal Department. They’re the ones who plug a bunch of variables into a computer to come up with what is called the “Fair Market Evaluation”. While variables like square footage and the number of baths are objective -- variables denoting things like condition or class are SUBJECTIVE.

- Then there’s the County Board of Equalization, which acts as the customer service department. They're the ones designated to work with homeowners who want to protest the county’s appraised value.

I TOOK A DIFFERENT APPROACH

Instead of following instructions to send a letter of protest to the BOE, I decided to try to get a face-to-face meeting at the County Appraisal Department. After all, they’re the ones who set the appraised value in the first place.

The punch line, of course, is that the meeting was a success and I’m saving a significant amount of money. What follows are the steps I took to make it happen.

WHAT I DID

1. For starters, a neighbor a few doors down had just accepted an offer for a home similar to mine. I used her price as a benchmark to make sure that I wasn’t selling myself short by not hiring a professional appraiser.

2. Next, I collected a handful of sales flyers posted in front of Homes For Sale in the neighborhood. I also had a 3-month-old letter from HouseValues.com, which contained data for several recent sales in my area.

3. From the data collected in step 2, I selected five homes that I felt best supported my case to get a reduced valuation.

4. I used this data to compile a simple table comparing my home to five others in the area. The column headings were:
- Address
- Asking / Selling Price
- Living Space
- Construction (ie Ranch vs 2-story; slab vs. crawspace, etc.)
- Notables from flyers (i.e. Fenced yard; hardwood floors; new construction, etc.)
- Cost per square foot

5. With my homework in hand, I drove to the courthouse and was granted a short meeting with an assessor from the County Appraisal Department.

6. From here, in a very polite and constructive manner, I presented my case asking for a reduction in the appraised value.

HERE'S WHERE THINGS GOT INTERESTING

Neither the Appraisal Department nor I have a professional appraisal in front of us -- all we have to go on was HIS computer and MY spreadsheet.

So, the appraiser compliments me on my thorough research, then asks “what number would make me happy?” (My guess is that he was trying to head off the need for an arbitration meeting.) From here he proceeds to modify some of the subjective data (like condition and grade) in his computer. After a couple of tries, he hits my number. The result was a 41.9% reduction in the valuation increase.

The entire meeting lasted less than 25 minutes. And I walked out a happy man!

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