CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Homeowners continue to be frustrated after receiving their latest home appraisal values. So, one island resident organized a town hall to hear from Nueces County, to hopefully get some answers.
"There's so much confusion and so much concern about the appraised values and the increase in taxes, " said Marvin Jones, the organizer of the town hall. "I thought it would be good to bring the chief appraiser here to the island and let him explain all that with his staff."
A couple hundred island residents showed up to the town hall, many angry over their appraisal value.
“It was through the roof. It was crazy. It’s nuts. People are going to leave the island. They’re going to leave, they can’t afford to stay here. It’s crazy,” said Mike Teitle.
“Oh I wasn’t happy. Shocked and not happy,” Cynthia Sharp said.
“Well I wasn’t happy. I have choices where I live so I'm going to do the best that I can with the resources I've been given,” said Robert Longoria.
Ronnie Canales, chief appraiser of Nueces County tried to explain how they appraise homes.
He said the increase in appraised value is likely due to a few things. He said there's a healthy housing market and combine that with the growth of Corpus Christi's. He added new technology and resources have helped his office in their appraisals.
“ I’m telling you there’s a lot of sales throughout the county in Nueces and in certain pockets. In Port Aransas we had close to 300 some odd sales. Here on the island and Flour Bluff combined, it’s close to a little over 1000 sales,” said Canales
Another factor to consider, if the county isn’t lining up with the Texas Comptroller's Office appraisal values, it could impact funding to the local school district.
Canales' other goal was to help guide people on the best practice in protesting your appraisal. Many people expressed that they will be protesting.
“For sure, I'm going to protest. I don’t know how much good it’ll do, but yeah I'm going to protest,” said Teitle
Not everyone left the town hall feeling it helped them. Some did say they got something out of it.
“It was very helpful and very informative," said Longoria. "It gives us more of an idea of what we should expect to try to help in our cases to try to protest.”
Canales said homeowners can protest their values up until July.
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