You're probably paying someone 30% for a worse result

If you got a property tax notice last April, you had three options: ignore it, protest it yourself, or pay a firm 25–40% of your first year's savings to do it for you.

Most of Frisco picked option three. Agent-filed protests have nearly doubled since 2022 while homeowners filing on their own have almost halved.

So I pulled Collin County's own protest records — all 14,345 residential protest filed in Frisco in 2025 — to see whether that was money well spent.

It wasn't.

That's before the firm's cut. The DIY guys came out ahead on the raw number and kept all of it.

A few other things the records show

Protesting works. 67.7% of Frisco protests ended with a lower value — better than two in three.

You probably won't have to argue in front of anyone. Most reductions were settled before a hearing ever happened.

1,013 people filed and then never showed up. Dismissed by default. If you file, put the hearing date in your phone.

The median reduction works out to roughly $300 off your first-year bill. Not life-changing — but it's about forty minutes of work, it compounds every year the lower value carries forward, and it costs nothing.

I put the full breakdown online, including your neighborhood: the Frisco property tax protest numbers. Plano, McKinney, Allen and Prosper are in there too.

Next year's notices mail in mid-April. The deadline is May 15.

Five prompts that do most of the work

The part that stops people isn't the argument — it's the paperwork and not knowing what to say. That's exactly what a chatbot is good at. All five of these work on the free tier of ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.

1. 1. Understand what your notice is actually saying

   I received a property appraisal notice from a Texas county appraisal district. Here are the numbers: [paste market value, appraised value, and last year's values]. Explain in plain English what each figure means, how the 10% homestead cap affects what I'll actually be taxed on, and which number I would be protesting. Ask me questions if anything is missing.

2. 2. Write the letter that gets you the district's own evidence

   Draft a short, polite written request to a Texas county appraisal district asking for the evidence they intend to use at my protest hearing, citing my right to it under Texas Tax Code Section 41.461. Keep it under 200 words, plain and professional. My property ID is [X] and my hearing is [date].

3. 3. Take apart the evidence once they send it

   I've attached the evidence packet my appraisal district plans to use against me. Summarize what they're claiming and what it rests on. Then list the specific questions I should ask about their comparables — square footage differences, condition, age, lot size, distance from my home. Do not add any sales data of your own.

4. 4. Turn your house's problems into an argument

   I'm protesting my Texas property appraisal on condition. Here's what's wrong with my house: [list everything — roof age, foundation cracks, old HVAC, dated kitchen, failed inspection items, repair quotes you've been given]. Organize this into a clear argument for why my home is worth less than the district's estimate. Tell me which items carry weight and which won't, and what documentation I should bring for each.

5. 5. Rehearse before you go in

   Act as an appraisal review board panel member in Texas. I'm going to make a three-minute case for lowering my home's appraised value. Here's my argument: [paste it]. Push back the way a real panel would, point out the weakest parts, and tell me what I should cut.

Start with #2 even if you do nothing else. The district has to hand over its evidence once you've filed, and almost nobody asks.

One ask

If you know someone in Frisco who paid a firm last year, forward this to them. The deadline's months away, which means there's still time for them to do something about it.

That's the whole reason I ran the numbers.

Before you go — where to eat this week

The Common Table, at The Star — kids 12 and under eat free Monday through Thursday, 5 to 7pm, with an adult entrée. I checked it against the restaurant's own page rather than an aggregator, which is more than I can say for most "kids eat free" lists floating around Frisco.

More at things to do in Frisco with kids.