With all the ups & downs in the economy, this is even more reason for homeowners to ask an agent to run local sale comps, so that they can make sure their home's tax value is still in-line with what is going on in the market. 2009 is a good time to determine if a protest of your property tax value is necessary.

Kaufman County overall had a slight increase in property taxes this year. I think that's due to several things such as the County is finally going out property to property to do an actual assessment instead of relying on old records - owners with acreage have been getting away with lower tax rates for sometime now. Secondly, the growth in the county is causing major increases in property and finally, Kaufman County is trying to stay in line with the growth that is occuring and they need to put funds into roads and bridges to build a sustainable infrastructure.

Dear Richard: Forney taxes run about 2.5% in general. We have several areas that are not served by the City of Forney, so they have a Municipal Utility District (MUD), and their taxes run a bit higher in order to pay for their water and sewer systems. In Kaufman County if you are not on a city sewer system or in a MUD, you must have at least 1 acre of land in order to have a septic system. So many of the homes in this area have an acre of land, and many of the builders are building a home on every acre in the subdivisions. Forney is building 1 new elementary school a year for 9 years, and we are about to start construction on our 2nd high school. The 2nd middle school was recently completed and the other middle school is currently being renovated. Needless to say, we have some growth going on out here!

If you are in one of the MUD districts that could add an extra 1% on to the rate. You can ck out http://www.kaufman-cad.org/taxinfo3.htm to see the different taxes for different areas. You can also use that website to help determine the taxes on a specific property. If you'd like a list of the total tax rates for different cities around Kaufman county or Forney just send me an email and I'll send it back to you.