Reduce Short-Term Rental Property Taxes with Ownwell

**Miles Hobson** (0:00)
Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's Hospitable Hosts podcast. I am your host for today, Miles Hobson, Head of Marketing here at Hospitable. And today, we are talking US property taxes with Sam from Ownwell. And please bear with me, I know property taxes doesn't sound like the most interesting topic, but we're going to delve into how you could be saving a bunch of money by getting a reassessment on your property taxes. So stay tuned, if you enjoyed today's episode, please don't forget to like, share, and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks.
Okay. Hello, Sam. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks, Miles.

**Sam Thrash** (0:37)
Pleasure to be here.

**Miles Hobson** (0:38)
Awesome. How's it going? Are you having a good day?

**Sam Thrash** (0:41)
Yeah, it's been great. We're in the thick of our busy season here at Ownwell, so staying busy and getting after it.

**Miles Hobson** (0:50)
Nice. And I normally ask this before we jump on, but whereabouts are you based? Whereabouts are the company based?

**Sam Thrash** (0:56)
Yeah. Yeah, I'm sitting here in Austin, Texas. This is our company headquarters. Most of the employees we have based here, but a big part of our business, as we'll get into, is property tax consulting, and we've got consultants local to the markets that we operate in.

**Miles Hobson** (1:12)
Nice. Okay. So yeah, I mean, jumping straight into that, I guess, is, you know, it's property taxes. That's what you do, but maybe you can give us, like, the layman's definition of what Ownwell does and how you got started.

**Sam Thrash** (1:23)
Sure. Yeah. So Ownwell exists because most property owners treat their property tax bill like a utility bill, right? They get it, they pay it, no real questions asked, and that's costing them, you know, some real money. We estimate that between 30 and 60% of property owners are overpaying at any given time. And a big reason why is that over 90% of property owners across the country take no action to challenge their property tax assessment. You know, most people don't realize they can, or they don't know how, or they simply don't have the time. And so we built Ownwell to reduce that friction, to make sure property owners are paying no more than they should.
And we combine local, you know, licensed property tax professionals with proprietary technology that handles the entire process from end to end and hopefully maximizes the savings that we're driving for our clients.

**Miles Hobson** (2:26)
Nice, that's cool. And yeah, hopefully we've not lost too many people by starting this by talking about property taxes. It's not necessarily the most exciting topic, but it sounds like there's some big chunks of cash to be saved through this, obviously.

**Sam Thrash** (2:39)
Yeah, yeah, you're right. I mean, it isn't the most exciting topic, but you know, it's really important for folks to be thinking about it and paying attention to it. We see all the time property taxes are often the single biggest operating expense for many property owners. And you know, what makes it different from other cash flow optimization strategies, like, you know, reducing property taxes requires, you know, no real capital, no kind of changes to your operations, no real trade-offs.
And every dollar you save there, you know, drops straight to the bottom line. So, you know, it's something that often goes kind of overlooked, but can be really important for your business.

**Miles Hobson** (3:29)
Nice. Okay. And I've got to be honest, for my own property taxes, I kind of just received the bill and I just pay it. I don't give it much thought and haven't really put much thought into, you know, could it be a lower bill? Maybe you can just talk me through, like, what goes into a property tax assessment? I'm guessing it depends on where you are in the US, but what are some of the common things that kind of determine how much tax you do pay?

**Sam Thrash** (3:55)
Yeah, it's a really good question.
Assessments are based on what the assessor in your county believes your property is worth, right? And unfortunately, the process is a lot less precise than I think people might assume. You know, that's because assessors are largely using what's called kind of mass appraisal techniques, right? They're basically leveraging statistical models applied across entire market areas. They're leveraging public records, things like square footage, bedroom count, lot size, you know, asset quality. But no one's walking your property, right? No one's accounting for the deferred maintenance or some of the functional limitations or obsolescence or just the unique characteristics of your property. The model really tries or treats a property like an average, but it often isn't, right? And on top of that, there's a lag problem. So assessors are looking historically at a market. And so what we tend to see is that that doesn't always reflect kind of the current market.