Natural disasters, property reappraisal, and fiscal outcomes

Meri Davlasheridze, Yilin Hou and Qing Miao

Journal of Housing Economics, 2026, vol. 72, issue C

Abstract: This study examines the role of natural disasters in prompting property assessments and their combined effects on homeowners and local government finance. Using the 2017 Hurricane Harvey as a quasi-experiment, we employ a difference-in-differences hedonic model and data of Harris County, Texas to analyze the changes in assessed and market values, assessment ratios, and effective tax rates for affected properties. Results show that Harvey caused an approximate 1.5% decline in assessed values, averaging $4927 per house and $2.6 billion reduction in tax base. The greater decline in assessed values relative to market values resulted in lower effective tax rates for affected homeowners after the storm. Houses in the Special Flood Hazard Areas experienced the largest declines in market and assessed values, closely mirroring value decreases among flooded houses. The storm effects varied across property value brackets, with lower-valued houses experiencing the most adverse shocks and also receiving proportionally greater tax relief than higher-valued ones. Though Harvey slashed property values, its effects were largely reversed within a year, revealing the resilience of the local housing market and the importance of fair tax policy in post-disaster recovery.

Keywords: Property tax; Value assessment; Natural disaster; Tax relief; Tax administration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1051137726000264
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jhouse:v:72:y:2026:i:c:s1051137726000264

DOI: 10.1016/j.jhe.2026.102145

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Housing Economics is currently edited by H. O. Pollakowski

More articles in Journal of Housing Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().