Dear Friends,
The title of this email is the title of a front-page report published by David Crowder this past weekend.
According to him, “the CAD’s preliminary valuations have apartments and other multifamily property valuations rising 38% to $2.96 billion this year and commercial properties, including hotels, up 20.3% to $9.2 billion.” Meanwhile, “home values were spared the increase, inching up just 2.1% to $21 billion in the city of El Paso.”
Crowder’s report is a rare dose of reality from a weekly that repeatedly tells us that everything is perfect in tax-and-spend El Paso, which has the 2nd highest homestead tax and 3rd highest commercial property tax among the 50 largest cities in America and where the City is building a multipurpose basketball arena and four waterparks even as they furlough 400 employees and cut the pay of thousands more.
Everyone in El Paso knows that powerful individuals and business groups have long conspired to shift as much of the property tax burden as possible from the commercial sector to homeowners; but with the unchecked spending of our local taxing entities–especially the City of El Paso–and the recent property tax reform enacted in Austin, the chickens are finally coming home to roost.
Now watch large numbers of commercial property owners and real estate investors launch a wave of lawsuits to try to limit their tax increases.
They had better get used to the bitter taste of their medicine.
Max