Information Resources

    • Give yourself a property Tax-Cut.
    • Why you need a Real Estate Agent and how to stay out of jail.
    • Things you should know about insurance coverage for your property.
    • Travis County Appraisal District - The Travis County Appraisal district is the definitive source of real estate data for the Austin area. The information they collect is public information. They do not provide the information on the Net, however, the property information is available over the phone and from private vendors.
      • Main number - 834-9137
      • Property information line - 834-9137
    • The best kept secret in America. Congress devalues real estate across America - Austin gets wiped out.
    • Nationwide telephone directory. Great for finding people.
    • Reinvest is an easy to use general purpose real estate calculator. Designed to measure the effects of the uncertain economic climate so as to make intelligent investment decisions.
    • MapQuest Interactive Atlis. With this interactive street guide, you get access to maps anywhere in the continental US.
    • The Austin Board of Realtors Multiple-Listing Service - good search capabilities but limited information - ie.. no street addresses.
    • Market Weighted Asset Model of Real Estate Appraisal. The value of the bundle of rights, called Real Estate, is not well understood. The misunderstanding of the dynamics underlying the ascertainment of property value is one of the contributing factors to the nation-wide collapse of Real Estate prices after the 1987 Tax Reform Act and is the subject of much confusion for Local Property Tax Authorities and property owners.
    • Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. Includes Tierra Grande journal and Law Letter articles along with Multiple Listing Service data from 1979.
    • I.R.S. Use of Local Property Appraisals Flawed. I.R.S. auditors often perform Real Estate appraisals.
    • I.R.S. Indexing of Asset Values for Inflation (Court Case).
    • Local Property Tax appraisal. Local Tax Departments partition the bundle of rights, called Real Estate, into two components, the improvement and that which is left over, called the land residual. The underlying assumption here is that total value of the bundle is equal to sum of its parts. This partitioning arrangement does not work well, because many of the component rights are mutially exclusive.