RE: TAX PROTESTS

So yeah, I was down at the Dallas County Appraisal District this afternoon. (If your protest is not postmarked by May 31, which is like now, you are OOL.) It was pretty crowded but, as Christine mentioned to you earlier, not as bad as I or the honchos down there expected.

Protests are down by about 20% although they may actually be up when today’s mail finally arrives next week. (We all just love to procrastinate, I guess.) I made a little headway on our homestead — a 2.64% reduction; I have to have a hearing on our rental condo. The appraiser was super nice–I was not well prepared. Had I taken down condition photos of the condo or even of our home, I may have fared better. The bad news: the district computers are uber up-to-date. I was shown the latest sales in our ‘hood (as if I didn’t know already) and warned that our property would be going nowhere but up. The message: liquidate fast or pay up. Steve Brown’s ears must have been burning: the appraiser refused to look at the clips I brought in saying that sales are down in Dallas. He told me that articles are written to sell newspapers (or magazines and I guess blogs, too) and are not at all accurate or factual (hmmm) and basically told me to throw Steve’s articles away or use them as liner in the parrot cage.