Relocating to Dallas | Relocation Resources for Moving to Dallas

As a newcomer to the Dallas-Fort Worth region, you may already be familiar with mortgage loan process. Even so, it’s helpful to review all the steps involved as well as region-specific resources and conditions that make buying a home here a pretty rewarding experience.

With thousands of neighborhoods in the Metroplex, it’s important to decide where you’d like to live. That decision you make may be based on a number of factors, including the location of your place of employment, the schools you choose for your children and lifestyle choices – do you want to live in an urban setting or would you prefer a master-planned community with amenities, such as a golf course?

Your Realtor® will be helpful to you if you’re new to buying real estate in Texas. He or she can provide more information on many topics as they arise. Below, we’ve covered a few important ones that are likely to come up in the home-buying and mortgage-loan process.

About Texas Property Taxes
In Texas, property taxes are local – assessed locally, collected locally and used locally. More than 3,700 local governments in Texas, including school districts, cities, counties and various special districts, collect and spend these taxes.

You may learn that several types of local governments can tax your property. Texas counties and local school districts tax all nonexempt property within their jurisdictions. You also may pay property taxes to a city and to special districts such as hospital, junior college or water districts, also called municipal utility districts or MUDs. MUD is a political subdivision of the State of Texas authorized by the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to provide water, sewage, drainage and other services within the MUD boundaries.
The governing body of each of these local governments determines the amount of property taxes it wants to raise and sets its own tax rate. Most, but not all, local governments other than counties contract with their county’s tax assessor-collector to collect the tax on their behalf.

Homestead Exemption
In Texas, homestead exemptions remove part of your home's value from taxation, so they lower your taxes. A homestead can be a separate structure, condominium or a manufactured home located on owned or leased land, as long as the individual living in the home owns it. Here’s how the exemption works. If your home is appraised at $100,000, and you qualify for a $15,000 exemption (this is the amount mandated for school districts), you will pay school taxes on the home as if it was worth only $85,000. Taxing units have the option to offer a separate exemption of up to 20 percent of the total value.
In order to qualify for the homestead exemption, the home must be your principal residence, and the home's owner must be an individual, not a corporation. The home must also be your principal residence on January 1 of the tax year. If you are age 65 or older, the January 1 ownership and residency are not required for the age 65 homestead exemption. Besides the homestead exemption described above, there are several other types of exemptions you may receive; learn more by visiting www.window.state.tx.us.

Property Tax Code and Your Homestead
The Texas Property Code allows homeowners to designate their homesteads to protect them from a forced sale to satisfy creditors. This law doesn't protect homeowners from tax foreclosure sales of their homes for delinquent taxes.

Deed Restrictions
You may decide to live in a subdivision or a master-planned community with deed restrictions, which appear in the real property records of the county in which the property is located. They are private agreements and are binding upon every owner in a subdivision. All future owners become a party to these agreements when they purchase property in deed restricted areas. That’s why it’s important to review the deed restrictions in a restricted subdivision or community you’re considering so you’re aware of the resident’s obligations and responsibilities. A primary purpose of most deed restrictions is preserving the residential character of a subdivision by keeping out commercial and industrial facilities. For people who prefer to live in a wholly residential environment, deed restrictions are desirable. Deed restrictions may legally prohibit a person from operating certain types of businesses from their home.

Homeowner’s Associations
When you buy a property in a deed restricted community, you are automatically a member of the community or homeowner’s association. It is your responsibility to adhere to the standards and rules set by the association as well as pay an annual fee or an assessment for the maintenance of the community’s common areas as well as parks, pools and recreational facilities.

Community Property Laws
Ownership in Texas falls under the law of community property for married people. This means that each spouse owns an undivided one-half interest of all property accumulated during the marriage except for separate property that was owned before the marriage or was received by gift or inheritance during the marriage.