Richard Petree, the Property Appraisal Consultant for Presidio County

Last month property owners in Presidio County received preliminary notices of re-appraised values on their property. This was part of a sweeping reassessment ordered by the county’s Appraisal District to correct years of imbalance. For example, one home that was appraised at $90,000 had a sale value of $900,000.

Homeowners were surprised to find values for 2014 so much higher than last year. The biggest jumps were in the city of Marfa, known regionally for its hot housing market.

On Tuesday night (June 10) at Marfa City Hall, consultant Richard Petree addressed the Council on behalf of the Presidio County Appraisal District. Many were in attendance: “I think people are shocked by the amount of the increase.”

According to Petree, the year 2014 is the year in which Marfa catches up. Historically, housing sale values have been out-of-whack compared to annual appraisals going back more than a decade. So out-of-whack that there were fears the state was going to get involved to mandate a correction.
“The state of Texas the controllers office had for several years pretty much threatend the appraisal district here about getting their values up and it had not be done and not been done.”
Petree found that sales ratios were off by a margin of 30 to 40 percent of real market value.
“The state can bring in a master and actually run the district. And set the budget. And that’s a bad situation that we want to try to avoid.”
The appraisals received are just preliminary. Protests will be heard. And mistakes will be corrected.
“We’ve sent these notices and there are mistakes on these notices and I’ve been able to correct a number of things yesterday and today with people."
Petree will be back to visit with more taxpayers from June 23rd to the 25th.
 “Marfa is a unique community, a unique market. I’ve been in this business for 38 years and I have never had a greater challenge than I have in this community to get the values correct.”