So I just sat there in the office not moving. After about 30 seconds he said you can leave now we are all finished. That's when I informed him that since he wasted my time now it was my turn to waste his.... After about 10 minutes of me sitting there and his next appointment was waiting he claimed he'd knock 10k off my value if I left. I looked him dead in the eye and told him I just texted my wife who was in the car with our two small children and she was on her way in to join in on the fun. He quickly offered 20k off the value and I agreed.
Wow, these are the words to live by. I need to write it down and use the next time I make an appointment with the city appraiser. I usually just sit and smile, and since I'm a good looking gal, it works wonders with elderly overweight city appraisers.
I argue every year, and even though I don't get what I ask, the city usually meets me in the middle, which I think is fair. But they keep increasing the value every year, since the housing prices keep climbing up. And in my prime school area they are up 200% since I bought the house in 2012. It gets tougher and tougher to argue that my house is worth less than $200k, when the house next door that has the same layout, and about 150sqft less than mine gets sold for $315k last year with old windows and a dilapidated yard and a retaining wall. When the appraiser showed me this house on his computer screen, the only thing I could say was, those people are crazy to pay that much. And he doesn't even know about two more flips in the area that are definitely going to be sold for >$300k, judging by the renovated exterior.
The process of arguing property taxes in our district has several steps. At the beginning of January we get the appraised value in the mail and are offered to meet with the appraiser for a preliminary hearing. The meetings are scheduled in the last week of January. Then, based on what we had to say, by mid May they come up with the "corrected" value (I don't think that my appraiser is the only deciding factor on the matter, so "wasting his time" technique might not work).
Then till the end of June or July we can argue the new corrected value on-line with the equalization board (if we are still unhappy with it). They give two options to argue, based on a fair appraisal and based on property condition. I usually argue in both categories, which takes me about 2-3hours. In "fair appraisal" category I bring all the properties that have similar sqft as mine, physically close to me, built in the same year (or close in age) and are appraised for less (off course I am cherry picking).
@Duke03 gave me a great idea to get quotes for things that "need" repaired and submit them in the category of property condition. The problem is, I bought this property renovated, and every year added improvements of my own, so figuring out what "needs" repaired is not very easy. I want to upgrade the garage door (don't know how much that would knock out off my property value).
When I personally (at the hearing) argue my personal property value, I usually bring my rentals papers along too. My rentals are already valued low, so the chances are pretty slim that I can get them even lower. The bad thing on my "total guts" is that after the final inspection by the city, they are getting the age of "0" instead of "115" and that is going to affect the value.
I think overall, increasing property taxes on houses that get remodeled and improved, is wrong, because it seems that good owners, or landlords get punished for keeping their properties in good shape, and bad owners and slumlords with decades of differed maintenance get rewarded with low taxes.