Is Your San Antonio Home Overassessed? What BCAD's Data Actually Shows

Key Takeaways

• 40% of Bexar County homes are assessed above their actual market value, according to third-party analysis of BCAD's 2025 data — roughly a coin flip whether your home is overvalued.
• BCAD uses just 84 field appraisers to assess 758,000+ parcels — a ratio of 9,024 properties per appraiser — forcing heavy reliance on statistical models that miss individual property conditions.
• San Antonio's housing market has shifted to a buyer's market with homes selling at 91–93% of asking price, yet BCAD raised residential assessments by 2.1% in 2025.
• Federal Reserve research confirms mass appraisal is systematically regressive — owners of lower-value homes pay effective tax rates up to 50% higher than owners of expensive homes.
• At a combined tax rate of ~2.3%, every $25,000 in overassessment costs you $575 per year — compounding annually if uncorrected.
• 185,211 protests were filed in 2024 (one for every four properties), and 99% of informal reviews resulted in reductions — the system is acknowledging its own errors at scale.
• BCAD appraisers never inspect home interiors — foundation issues, outdated kitchens, water damage, and deferred maintenance are invisible to the model.

An analysis of BCAD's 2025 appraisal data found that approximately 40% of Bexar County homes were assessed above their market value, while 60% were at or below — described as "an unsettling trend for homeowners already burdened by high property taxes."

O'Connor & Associates / BexarCountyPropertyTaxTrends.com

That is not an edge case — it is the norm. If nearly half of all homes are overvalued, the question is not whether the system makes mistakes. It is whether your home is one of them.

Decision guide

Not all overassessments look the same. The reason your home is overvalued determines what evidence you need to fix it.

How BCAD's mass appraisal produces errors

The Bexar County Appraisal District (officially renamed Bexar Central Appraisal District as of January 1, 2026) appraises all taxable property in the county. Chief Appraiser Rogelio Sandoval oversees 194 employees and a $25.9 million annual budget. The district serves 81 taxing units and appraises 774,065 parcels.

The core problem is structural. BCAD uses Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal (CAMA) software to generate values for hundreds of thousands of properties simultaneously. The primary residential method is the cost approach — calculating replacement cost minus depreciation, adjusted for local market conditions. Properties are grouped into market areas and valued as statistical cohorts, not as individual homes.

With only 84 field appraisers responsible for 758,020+ real property parcels, each appraiser covers approximately 9,024 properties. Texas law requires physical inspection at least once every three years, but inspections are exterior-only — appraisers conduct drive-by reviews, use aerial photography, and overlay sketches. They never enter your home.

This means deferred maintenance, foundation issues, outdated kitchens, water damage, and other interior problems that reduce a home's actual market value are invisible to the model. As Colton Pace, co-founder of property tax firm Ownwell, told Bankrate: "They basically put in all the data and spit out all the numbers. It works much of the time, but it inevitably produces misdiagnoses."

The market shifted — assessments did not

San Antonio's real estate market has undergone a decisive transformation from the frenzied seller's market of 2021–2022 to a buyer's market. Multiple data sources confirm the cooling, yet BCAD continued to raise residential assessments by 2.1% in 2025.

The divergence between asking prices and actual sale prices tells the story. Over half of San Antonio listings required price reductions in late 2025, and only 9–15% of homes sold above list price. Meanwhile, inventory reached 16,000–17,000 active listings — exceeding pre-pandemic levels by approximately 25%.

San Antonio's housing inventory sits approximately 25% above pre-pandemic levels. Homes are spending 74–86 days on market and selling for 7–9% below asking price, while BCAD increased residential assessments by 2.1% in 2025.

San Antonio Board of Realtors (SABOR), Nov 2025; Zillow Housing Data

Neighborhood-level data reveals even sharper declines. Stone Oak saw median prices drop 7.4% year-over-year, with homes sitting on market for 94 days. New Braunfels declined 3.2–3.6% with 127 days on market. These pockets of significant correction are precisely where the gap between BCAD assessments and market reality is widest.

The regressivity problem

The overassessment burden does not fall evenly. Research from the University of Chicago's Property Tax Fairness Project, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and a synthesis in the Harvard Journal on Legislation has documented that property tax assessments are systematically regressive nationwide — lower-value homes are assessed at a higher percentage of their true market value than expensive homes.

The Federal Reserve study found that owners of inexpensive homes pay effective tax rates up to 50% higher than owners of expensive homes. The study attributed 60% of this regressivity to flawed valuation methods and 40% to infrequent reappraisal. In Bexar County, the San Antonio Report noted that "homes of the lowest value in Bexar County are being overtaxed compared to homes that are worth more."

Among single-family homes subject to the same tax rate, owners of inexpensive houses pay almost 50% higher effective tax rates than owners of expensive houses, due primarily to assessors' flawed valuation methods that ignore variation in priced house and neighborhood characteristics.

Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Working Paper 22-02 (January 2022)

What overassessment costs you

At San Antonio's combined property tax rate of approximately 2.3%, overassessment translates directly into dollars leaving your pocket every year — and the cost compounds if the error goes uncorrected.

A common data error illustrates the impact. If BCAD overstates your square footage by 300 sq ft at $150/sq ft, that creates $45,000 in incorrect valuation — approximately $1,035 per year in excess taxes, or $5,175 over five years. Square footage errors are among the most common mistakes in BCAD's records, inherited from inconsistent data when the district was formed in 1979.

Bexar County property taxes have risen 33% since 2019, ranking among the top five U.S. counties with the biggest property tax hikes. The City of San Antonio is now considering raising its property tax rate for the first time in more than 30 years, as the city faces negative growth in base taxable values — something that has not occurred since the aftermath of the 2009 recession.

The protest numbers prove systematic error

BCAD's own data demonstrates how pervasive overassessment is. When 185,000 properties are protested annually and virtually all informal reviews result in reductions, the system is acknowledging its own inaccuracy at scale.

In 2024, nearly one in three properties that received a notice was protested. Of those 185,211 protests, 158,342 were residential and 21,875 were commercial. Tax agents and consultants filed 64% of all protests (119,343 protests representing $120.4 billion in noticed value), while individual property owners filed 36%.

The resolution data is equally telling. Approximately 77% of protests were resolved through informal agreements — and the overwhelming majority received some reduction. At formal ARB hearings, approximately 92% of cases were decided in the property owner's favor. In 2023, property tax protests in Bexar County resulted in total savings of approximately $258 million.

BCAD processed 185,211 protests in 2024. Of those, 143,260 were resolved through informal agreements, 25,196 received formal ARB hearing orders, and 14,976 were withdrawn or resulted in no-shows. Total contested noticed value exceeded $147 billion.

BCAD 2024 Annual Report

Why most homeowners still do not protest

Despite these success rates, fewer than 10% of Texas homeowners actually file protests. In Bexar County, 81.6% of homeowners — 497,508 properties — did not protest in 2024. The reasons are predictable: the process seems intimidating, homeowners do not know they have the right, or they assume the district's value is correct.

The trend is shifting toward professional representation. In 2023, agents filed 114,552 protests versus 85,037 by individual owners. By 2025, agent-filed protests reached 134,669 while owner-filed protests dropped to 52,569. Homeowners are increasingly recognizing that the complexity of evidence gathering and hearing preparation favors professional representation.

Recent reforms provide relief — but do not replace protesting

Texas voters have approved significant property tax reforms since 2023, but none of these substitute for examining your individual assessment:

• Proposition 4 (2023): Increased homestead exemption from $40,000 to $100,000 on school district taxes. Compressed school tax rates. Created a temporary 20% circuit breaker for non-homestead property under $5 million.
• Proposition 13 (Nov 2025): Raised school district homestead exemption to $140,000, retroactive to 2025. Estimated savings of $350–$500/year for the average homeowner.
• Proposition 11 (Nov 2025): Increased senior/disabled add-on exemption to $60,000, creating a $200,000 total senior school exemption.
• BCAD rollover provision (Sept 2024): Properties that successfully protest their 2025 valuation carry that value forward to 2026 unchanged — no re-protesting required unless there is new construction.

These reforms reduce your tax bill by lowering the taxable value base. But if your assessed market value is wrong — higher than what your home would actually sell for — exemptions do not fix that. They just reduce the damage. The only way to correct an overassessment is to protest it.

Methodology

All data in this analysis is sourced from primary government, institutional, and research sources. Market data reflects conditions as of Q4 2025. Assessment data reflects BCAD's 2025 appraisal year.

Overassessment estimates (40% of homes above market value) are from O'Connor & Associates analysis of BCAD's 2025 certified roll compared against actual sale prices.

Mass appraisal methodology data is from BCAD's 2024 Annual Report and 2025–2026 Reappraisal Plan, supplemented by IAAO Standards on Mass Appraisal and the Texas Comptroller's Property Tax Assistance Division.

Market conditions (inventory, days on market, sale-to-list ratios, price trends) are from SABOR monthly market reports, Zillow Housing Data, Redfin Data Center, and the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M.

Regressivity research is from three primary sources: University of Chicago Property Tax Fairness Project (Christopher Berry), Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Working Paper 22-02 (Natee Amornsiripanitch, January 2022), and Harvard Journal on Legislation Vol. 62.1 (David Schleicher, Winter 2025).

Protest statistics are from BCAD's 2024 Annual Report and the Texas Comptroller Biennial Property Tax Operations Survey.

Sources:

• BCAD 2024 Annual Report
• Texas Comptroller — Property Tax Assistance
• San Antonio Board of Realtors (SABOR)
• Zillow Housing Data
• O'Connor & Associates
• University of Chicago Property Tax Fairness Project

Common questions