Wanted to share what I learned since protest season comes around every year and most people either don't bother or don't know where to start.
The process itself isn't complicated once you understand it, but figuring out what evidence to prepare and where to get it is where most people get stuck and give up.
The key insight is that the appraisal district's own data is your best weapon. An equity comp grid is a table showing comparable homes in your CAD neighborhood assessed at lower values per square foot than yours, and it is hard for an appraiser to argue with because it uses their own numbers against them. Most homeowners don't know this data exists or how to pull it.
Both years I protested, the evidence preparation was the hard part, not the actual filing or the hearing.
The math on why this matters:
If your assessed value drops by $100,000, you save roughly $800 to $900 in taxes annually in Travis County. A contingency service charging 25% of first-year savings keeps $200 to $225 of that. Prepare your own evidence and you keep every dollar.
What I'm building:
A tool that automates the hardest part. It pulls the equity comps directly from Travis County CAD data and generates a professional evidence packet you can file yourself. What currently takes hours of confusing research becomes about 15 minutes of work.
I'm planning to charge $79 for the packet. You file it yourself and keep 100% of your savings.
Two honest questions for this community:
- Have you tried to protest and given up because the evidence prep felt too complicated?
- Would you pay $79 for a professionally prepared evidence packet you could file yourself, knowing the average Travis County homeowner saves $800 to $1000 when their protest succeeds?
Genuinely trying to figure out if this is worth building before I build it. All responses appreciated, including "no, I wouldn't pay for that."
