We had a client one year who came to us in dire need of tax relief.  They owned a 29,000 SF retail center built in 2006 in Southwest Houston.  They had never protested their property taxes before until the Appraisal District raised their value on their retail center from $2,600,000 to an astonishing $3,539,725 at a tax rate of 2.71%.  The taxes they now had to pay rose from $70,460.00 to $95,927.00.  Their mortgage banker was demanding them to transfer $100,000.00 in cash into an escrow account to cover the property taxes which were now at almost $100,000.00.  Desperate they hired us as their tax agent and we began the research as to why the Appraisal District would raise the taxable value by 36%.  After extensive research we discovered that the Appraisal District was using the Sales Comparables of much larger retail centers that were 100% occupied with national tenants off of major streets in high population areas with high income earners.  Our clients’ property was the exact opposite yet the Appraisal District felt it was appropriate to use these retail centers as comparables.  Fortunately, we were able to find more appropriate sales comparables and bring the value down to $ 2,663,574 and save our clients $23,774.00 in taxes that they would have owed without protesting.