HCAD's own grouping, narrowed to genuinely similar houses, compared on price per square foot against the median. Every rule, in full. No black box.
Check your home FREE →We read HCAD's own appraisal roll, take the homes the district itself grouped with yours, narrow them to genuinely similar houses, and compare price per square foot against the median. Here is every rule we apply, in full. No black box, and nothing you have to take on trust.
Tax Code §41.43(b)(3) says your value should be equal to or less than "the median appraised value of a reasonable number of comparable properties, appropriately adjusted."
Not the average. Not market value. Not a Zillow estimate. The median appraised value. We are not approximating a legal argument — we compute the exact quantity the statute names, which is why the evidence is hard for the district to wave away.
| Filter | What it does |
|---|---|
| Same neighbourhood | We use HCAD's own neighbourhood code — the grouping the district itself used when it valued your home. There are 5,887 of them across Harris County single-family property. Not a radius, not a school zone, not our opinion of what counts as nearby. |
| Within 17.5% on size | Living area, not lot size. A home outside that band is not a comparable, whatever the street says. |
| Within 12 years | Effective year built, which accounts for major renovation, rather than the original construction date. |
| At least 5 | Below 5 genuinely similar homes we do not report a result at all. See the last section. |
Those are our filters. The law's own list of what makes a property comparable is longer, and worth reading once: §23.013(d) names location, square footage of the lot and the improvements, property age, property condition, property access, amenities, views, and any easements or deed restrictions affecting marketability. Size, age and location do most of the work; condition is the one you can document yourself, which is why the kit asks about it.
This is the one that decides whether your evidence survives a hearing, and the one a homeowner doing this alone almost always misses.
Once a home has a homestead exemption, its appraised value may only rise 10% a year however fast the market moved. So a long-time owner can be taxed on $116,588 while their house would sell for $142,436 — a real Harris County home, sitting in the middle of the 163,495 homes in that position. If you bought recently, no cap has built up for you and you are taxed on the full figure.
On paper you look $25,848 over-valued against an identical house. You are not. Take that comparison to a hearing and the district dismisses it in about ninety seconds — correctly.
So we sort your comparables by cap status and only compare like with like. Capped against capped, uncapped against uncapped. When there are not at least 5 like-for-like homes we widen the pool and say so in your report, rather than handing you a weaker case dressed up as a strong one. Full explanation of the cap is on how HCAD decides what your home is worth.
Houses are different sizes, so comparing total values tells you nothing. Price per square foot is what makes two different houses comparable at all.
| Home | Appraised | Size | Per sq ft |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yours | $285,000 | 1,850 | $154.05 |
| Neighbour | $340,000 | 2,400 | $141.67 |
Your neighbour's home is valued $55,000 higher than yours. It is also bigger. Per square foot they are taxed at $141.67 and you are at $154.05 — so the more expensive house is the better-treated one. That is the comparison that matters, and it is invisible until you divide by size.
The median is the one in the middle. Line your comparable homes up cheapest to dearest and take the one standing in the centre. Nine comparable homes, dollars per square foot:
If we used the average, a single unusual house on your street could make you look fairly assessed when you are not. Texas law asks for the median for exactly this reason (§41.43(b)(3)) — and so do we.
| Gap against the median | What we tell you |
|---|---|
| 10% or more, or $15,000+ | Strong case |
| 5% or more, or $8,000+ | Worth filing |
| At or below the median | Fairly assessed. We say so. |
Texas does not only require your home to be valued correctly. It requires it to be valued consistently with comparable homes. Those are two different tests, and the second is much easier to win.
Suppose HCAD's $285,000 is a perfectly reasonable guess at what your home would sell for. You might still have a case:
| Per sq ft | |
|---|---|
| Your home | $154.05 |
| Median of 8 comparable homes | $138.00 |
| Difference | $16.05 |
Across 1,850 square feet that gap is about $29,700 of value. It does not matter whether the district's opinion of the market was fair. Your neighbours are taxed at $138.00 a foot and you are taxed at $154.05. That inconsistency is the protest.
And the burden is not yours. Tax Code §41.43(b) says an unequal-appraisal protest is decided in the owner's favour unless the district disproves it.
If there are fewer than 5 genuinely comparable homes, you get no verdict. Not a hedge, not a maybe — the honest answer, which is that the data will not support a confident case for your address this year.
We would rather tell you there is nothing here than sell you a protest that wastes your time. Checking is free, so nothing has been lost, and the check is free again next year when the numbers change.
Texas does not publish sale prices, so HCAD does not have to accept a Zillow estimate. It does have to consider its own appraised values. Tax Code §41.43(b)(3) compares your value with the median appraised value of comparable properties — the district's own numbers, which are much harder for it to argue against.
We start from HCAD's own neighbourhood code, the grouping the district itself used when it valued your home, then narrow to homes within 17.5% of your living area and 12 years of your effective year built, and we require at least 5 of them. We also match on homestead-cap status, so capped homes are only compared with capped homes.
It means your home must be valued consistently with comparable homes, not just valued correctly. Under Tax Code §41.43(b) an unequal-appraisal protest is decided in the owner's favour unless the appraisal district disproves it. It is usually the easier case to win, because it needs no sale prices — only HCAD's own published values.
One renovated or unusual house can drag an average a long way. In a list of nine comparable homes running from $118 to $402 per square foot, the average is $166 but the median is $138. The statute asks for the median for that reason.
It is HCAD's own grouping of homes it has decided behave as one market — there are 5,887 of them across Harris County single-family property, and yours is printed on your HCAD property page. We start from it deliberately: if we picked comparable homes by drawing a circle on a map, the district could argue we chose the ones that suited us. Starting from its own grouping means the comparison is built out of a decision it already made about your home.
Then you get no verdict, and we say so plainly. Below 5 genuinely comparable homes the data will not support a confident case for your address this year. Checking is free, so nothing has been lost.
Last updated: August 29, 2026 · Harris County, Texas. Figures on this page are generated from HCAD's own public appraisal roll, not typed in by hand.