Collin County, back in the day. As a teacher, I had time in the summer, so I became an expert protester, about 12 to 15 years ago. I remember one summer, I was grinding hard, asking for an appraisal to be reduced way down. Had people come out to give me estimates on repairing everything that needed fixing. This was before online protests. I arrived to meet the old men on the committee and they looked at my evidence and met me at least halfway. I had to have been the most successful protester in McKinney, mostly because everybody was so busy working and commuting that they didn't have time to go through the exercise. It was basically a small summer job for me. That summer was worthwhile because the following years the increase was limited because of the 10% rule.
A few years later I took my foot off the brake and let the appraisal increase, because I knew we were going to sell. My last year of paying the taxes, I paid $3700, and the lady investor who bought the house paid $5000+. Sold in 2018.
Now, as a renter in SA, am looking at the homestead exemption and trying to work the system. My wife turns 63 in a couple of months and she would be on the deed. The new homestead exemption for age 65 or better goes to $200k very soon. If we were to buy a property at under 200k in the calendar year in which she turns 65, theoretically we would have an air-tight case to pay $0 in ISD taxes forever.....or so I thought. Some taxes are also frozen at age 65.
I called Bexar county appraisal district in April: Me: "if I buy a property in February of a certain year under 200k you have to accept the sales price as appraised value, correct?" Lady "No, we do our own, but you can protest." Me: "but it is based upon market value, correct?". Lady would not comment further, just repeated previous statement.
Based upon my previous success protesting, I could handle that pretty easily, but it would be a lot easier if there were generally accepted rules the appraisal district must follow.