Texas Homeowners Lost $2 Billion By Not Contesting Their Property Taxes

Rising mortgage rates and home prices are already a strain on homeowners across the country. On top of that, a new study revealed that Texas homeowners have lost billions of dollars over the past three years in property tax payments.

Property tax consulting company Ownwell conducted a study that analyzed in-house and county-level data from seven high-density Texas counties. The study compared annualized market value and tax-savings discrepancies from 2022 to 2024 among homeowners who received property tax reductions and those who didn’t. Ownwell also highlighted the total savings from successful protests alongside what non-protestors could have saved.

The seven surveyed counties include Bexar, Collin, Dallas, Fort Blend, Harris, Tarrant and Travis.

Ownwell said that all properties should theoretically have similar market values across all counties, regardless of who protested in previous years.

“Our research revealed that this isn’t the case. Across counties, those who protested and received a reduction often had lower market values the following year than those who didn’t protest,” Ownwell noted in the study.

The analysis found that homeowners who did not contest their property taxes in 2023 had an average market value that was 1.58% higher than those who did. This number dropped to 1.38% in 2024. Cumulatively, non-protesting homeowners had a market value that was 11.11% higher in 2023 and 10.91% higher in 2024. This equated to $2.02 billion in potential tax savings lost for those who did not contest their bills, according to Ownwell.

Three counties led the way for differences in market values between protestors and non-protestors. In 2023 and 2024, Dallas County, Harris County and Tarrant County had the most notable differences. Dallas County posted disparities of 5.36% and 6.46% in 2023 and 2024, respectively. In Harris County, the differences were 3.29% and 1.52%, while Tarrant County’s were 2.47% and 1.31%.

Ownwell noted that “even when the market value went down in certain counties, homeowners who protested reduced their property’s market value and thus their property taxes more than those who didn’t protest.”

Fort Bend County — where 29% of homeowners protested their tax bill — had the highest tax savings number in 2024 at $194 million. Travis and Harris counties accumulated $146 million and $108 million in savings, respectively. The seven-county average was more than $80 million, according to the study.

In Fort Bend County, 209,622 homeowners did not protest last year. Those who did enjoyed a success rate of 86.5%, although they had the lowest reduction by percentage (4.9%) of the counties analyzed. That amounted to savings of $29.5 million over three years.

Travis County’s 218,646 non-protesting homeowners in 2024 could’ve saved $438.7 million in property taxes over three years. Travis County had the highest share of protesting homeowners (41.5%) and the second-highest success rate (88.4%). In total, successful protestors saved about $304.8 million over three years.

Harris County’s 386,871 non-protesting homeowners in 2024 accumulated a gross market property value of $256 billion. According to Ownwell, homeowners there missed out on $248 million in property tax savings. And with the second-highest share of protestors (31%), Harris County homeowners also posted an 85% success rate.

Ownwell also added that “those who protested in 2024 likely owned higher-value homes since the 31% who protested possessed 42.3% of Harris County’s residential market value ($188 billion) and saved over $194 million.”