Austin Real Estate Blog

As alot of us know recently tax appraisals went up dramatically. The appraised values had been below the average sales prices for a few years. It was common for a house that sold for 200k to be appraised on the tax rolls for 170k. The state came in and said if Austin didn't raise their appraisal values to reflect sales prices they would cut education funding. So most property owners saw their appraised values increase dramatically this year.

The question has lingered: what is Austin going to do with the extra money it will be generating? Austin already had increased revenues due to the upturn in the economy. Now with the forced increase in property appraisal values, will Austin lower tax rates? On Friday the Statesman had an article about a proposed break for Austin taxpayers. The 2007 budget was released on July 27th and showed homeowners with a lowered tax rate in 2007. The proposed tax rate for the city in the new budget was 39.85 cents per $100.00 in tax value which is lower than the current tax rate of around 45 cents.

Although the tax rate might decrease, the uptick in the economy and the increased appraised values will allow for an increased budget. Some programs such as emergency medical response were cut during the downturn. The increased budgets will pay to replace aging ambulances and to add back training that was cut during the downturn.

Below is a graph which shows the history of the Austin Tax rate over the last few years and the total property valuation of Austin over the last few years.

In addition to Austin lowering the city tax rates, the state of Texas is lowering school property taxes in May. The tax cut will be paid for by increased taxes on businesses and cigarettes. Currently the tax rate for the Austin ISD runs at about $1.623 per $100 in tax value. Under the new bill the tax rate should be lowered to $1 per $100 in tax value. There has been alot of debate about the bill. Although the tax rate is lowered, schools can raise taxes for local programs. State Comptroller Strayhorn has said that once schools raise taxes for local programs, the tax savings will be minimal so taxpayers will have to wait and see how the bill plays out.

To see the current tax rates in Austin we have created a table located here
Austin Real Estate Tax Rates