Lowered home values have made it frustratingly difficult for many people to refinance. As house values have dropped, lenders are demanding cash infusions to support an 80% loan-to-value. Homeowners do not want to dig into savings to put more money down during these tremendously uncertain times.
This catch-22 is particularly a problem for those who bought homes with 5% or 10% down and are now faced with 5.5% mortgages that they cannot refinance without coming up with 20% of their home’s value in cash.
The battle to represent you
If your home has gone down in value, then you have likely been hammered with direct mail pieces from companies like “Property Tax Advisors” that promise to represent you in front of your local property tax appeals board. If these representatives win, you pay them half of the savings they generate, which can be a few thousand dollars for an expensive home.
Although I have friends who have had good luck with these services, I have been hoping for an alternative. With a November 1 deadline approaching, my options were vanishing until I received a piece of bulk mail from ValueAppeal.com.
ValueAppeal’s value proposition
ValueAppeal charges a fixed $99 to create a package of paperwork and comps that you physically mail to your local property tax appeals board. The process was easy, intuitive, and very empowering. In 10 minutes I made my case for a $3,000 savings in my property taxes.
Next I will receive mail or a phone call from an appeals officer, to whom I will represent my case using ValueAppeal’s material.
I’ll update this post in a few months, once I’ve seen the results. If I fail to get any savings, then the $99 fee is advertised as fully refundable, and I’ll report on that process. But for now, at least, I remain very optimistic.
(Note – as a Fee-Only financial advisor, I don’t get paid for endorsing any product or service, including ValueAppeal, with whom I have no relationship. I am paid only for assets I manage on behalf of clients.)