My Home Worth vs. My Tax Notice: Florida's Real Gap

The Notice in Your Mailbox Isn't Your Home's Worth

So if that mailed number isn't my home's worth, what actually is it? It's your county's assessed value - the figure your property appraiser uses to calculate your tax bill, not the figure a buyer would actually pay. Each mid-to-late August, Florida counties mail a TRIM notice (Truth in Millage) showing that assessed value alongside your proposed tax bill. For a homesteaded property, that assessed value is frozen from rising more than a small percentage each year, even while home prices around you keep moving.

Your tax notice and your home's actual worth are two different numbers, calculated for two different reasons. One funds the county budget. The other is what a buyer would pay you today.

Florida's Save Our Homes Cap, in Plain Terms

The gap between your tax notice and your home's real worth has a name and a specific limit. Under Florida Statute 193.155, once you hold a homestead exemption, your property's assessed value can rise no more than 3% in a year, or the change in the Consumer Price Index if that number is lower - whichever is smaller. Hold that homestead for ten or fifteen years in a market that's appreciated faster than 3% a year, and the cap can leave your assessed value tens of thousands of dollars under your home's real worth.

With Cash Flow Deals, you choose between the Fast Cash Offer, where we buy your house as-is and close, and the Premium Cash Offer, where a pre-approved FHA or conventional buyer we already have, ready to go, pays more and buys directly from you. With Premium, your home may be listed through Silver Door Realty, a licensed Florida brokerage, with a licensed agent and scheduled showings.

We cover repair costs, and we figure out a way, so nothing comes out of your pocket. With Premium, only what your buyer's lender requires gets fixed, with repair costs settled from the sale proceeds from our share. With Fast Cash, we buy as-is, with no repairs for you to make. The number is agreed before any work starts, and it changes only if you agree. The one exception: if something structural surfaces that was not visible or disclosed before we signed — foundation issues, hidden moisture, old wiring, cast-iron drain failure — we re-cost it and bring the number back to you. You decide. You can walk away. We disclose what we know at offer time so this almost never happens. If your buyer's loan falls through, that is our problem, not yours, and you can still take the Fast Cash Offer at its own number instead of continuing with the Premium Cash Offer.

Think of your assessed value like a rent-controlled lease on paper: real, legally binding, and completely disconnected from what the place next door just went for on the open market.

Get Your Home's Actual Worth, Not Its Tax Number

You don't need to wait for your county to catch up to the real market to find out what your home is worth.

Cash Flow Deals Offer Process:

1. Cash Flow Deals reviews your house directly and returns a net-price offer in writing, typically within 24 to 48 hours, based on your home's real condition and current comps.

2. Its licensed FL brokerage partner, Silver Door Realty, walks you through exactly how that number was reached - independent of your assessed value.

3. You close in 45 days or less, on a date you help pick.

The one exception: if something structural surfaces that was not visible or disclosed before we signed - foundation issues, hidden moisture, old wiring, cast-iron drain failure - we re-cost it and bring the number back to you. You decide. You can walk away. We disclose what we know at offer time so this almost never happens.

Keep your tax notice for your records. Just don't use it to guess what your home would actually sell for.