- Construction Wraps on 24-Story SkyHouse Main Downtown [CoStar Group; previously on Swamplot]
- Texas Children’s Hospital Buys O’Quinn Medical Tower, Baylor Clinic Building in Med Center [HBJ]
- Co-Working Space TechSpace Opening in the Westchase District in April 2017 [HBJ]
- Rice University’s Off-Campus Housing Costs More Than U.S. Median, Finds Zillow [Houston Chronicle]
- City Council To Consider Cutting Houston Property Tax Rate for Third Time in 3 Years [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Houston Monthly Sales Tax Revenue Down 4.51% in July from Same Month Last Year [Houston Chronicle]
- TxDOT To Start Acquiring Property for SH 249 Toll Road Extension into Grimes County [Houston Public Media]
- Artist Boat Buys Another 40 Acres on Galveston’s West End for Preservation [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- There Have Been More Than 11K Registrations for Cistern Tours Since It Opened to the Public in May [CityLab; previously on Swamplot]
- More Details About Tri-C’s Plan To Drill for Oil on the Northern Shore of Lake Houston [Houston Public Media]
Photo of The Woodlands: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Re: City Council to Consider Cutting Property Tax Rate for Third Time
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I’m slightly ambivalent to cutting the property tax rate – we have city services that need to be paid so starving these is not necessarily a good thing. If we have “too” much money, put it towards the pension hole.
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On the other hand, I’m strongly against removing the revenue cap: city government would gobble up as much money as it could if no cap was present. The City’s record hasn’t been very good on wise spending. I’d be afraid that they would just have more money to squander.
So in addition to declining sales taxes we’re also cutting revenue while heading into a recession? Brilliant job Houston!
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Now, where’s that August HAR report. Things can’t be looking good.
Why har taking so long to release aug data?
It would be helpful if HCAD would release figures on the skyrocketing evaluations of properties and the tax revenue generated from same. It may well be that the city and the 7 or 8 other entities that collect taxes could still see an increase, even it the tax rate were lowered.
@Darby Mom, do you think it’ll be $160MM? Because that was the budget gap from last year from my understanding that has resulted in both forced personnel reductions and deferred payments on the part of the city.
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It’s just funny that the property tax cuts are now starting to hit as the city faces headwinds in it’s growth. When hit with falling revenue you would ideally want to start borrowing and investing for the future, but the inaction of Houstonians to force the city to reckon with it’s pension debt over the past 10years has hampered that ability and significantly increases the chances of higher-cost financing in the future.
Nevermind, August report just released today. Very strong sales numbers, but for us prospective buyers there’s still good news. Apparently still plenty of pent-up demand at the current prices, but good news for everyone that we both had a record sales month while still seeing a significant bump up in the amount of inventory.
Don’t worry. They may cut the tax rate, but they’ll just turn around and increase the appraised value of your lot and home, and bank on most people being too lazy to dispute it.