Editorial policy

A number on a public page needs a publisher, a URL, and the date someone checked it. Tax rates and exemptions come from the county tax office, the appraisal district, the school district, or the Texas Comptroller. The mortgage starting rate comes from the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey. The 80% home-equity cap comes from the Texas Constitution. Coverage rules come from the Texas Department of Insurance or TWIA.

The methodology shows the formulas. The data sources page lists the files. Tool pages and articles carry a How we got these numbers box so the source sits next to the figure.

If two official pages disagree, the figure stays out until they can be reconciled. Harris County’s local over-65 exemption is the current example: a tax year 2025 court order and the HCAD jurisdiction page did not match, so neither dollar amount is used.

An adopted rate that has not been posted is not invented. Choosing 2026 for the City of Houston, Harris County Department of Education, and other units still missing a 2026 rate uses the 2025 rate and labels the fallback. A reported rate of zero is unavailable, not a zero tax.

The site does not publish a city median price, a five-year appreciation rate, a typical insurance deductible, or a share of flood claims. Those were removed because they were not in a source file. Sample amortization in a mortgage article is labeled as an illustration of the formula, not as a market forecast.

A rate page shows the date the source file was checked. The sitemap uses that same date for calculator pages. Editorial pages that are not driven by a rate file use the date in the page-date list, which is updated when the page changes. The updates page is the readable history.

School, city, and county rates can change every fall. A page can be current on the day it was checked and stale the next week. The estimate is not a substitute for the bill from the county tax office.

If a rate, an exemption, or a citation is wrong, send the page URL and the official source through the contact form. A confirmed correction updates the data file or the page, and the updates list records the change. There is no separate author biography. The publisher of the pages is TexasHomeScout.

The site runs Google AdSense. The account is identified in the page metadata and in ads.txt. Ads are not placed over the site header or the hero. Calculator results are not sold as a lead to a lender, a tax-protest firm, or an insurer. Affiliate relationships, if any are added later, will be named on the page that uses them. The disclaimer and the privacy policy still apply.

The calculators are for a homeowner or a buyer who wants to see how a sourced rate and a sourced exemption change a bill, a payoff date, or the room under the Texas 80% cap. Confirm the account with the appraisal district, the tax bill with the county tax office, the note with the servicer, and a policy with a licensed agent.

Topic hubs collect those tools and the articles that explain them: property tax, insurance, and home equity.