How this works

Most agents sell the house. I plan the whole move.

Almost nobody selling a DeSoto home is only selling. They are going somewhere — a new build in Midlothian, something smaller, a different state, a parent’s house that has to be dealt with.

The listing is the easy half. The hard half is the sequence: what you clear here, what that qualifies you for there, and how the two closings line up so you are never homeless and never carrying two payments you did not plan for.

I am licensed as a broker and as a loan officer. TREC #0657467 and NMLS #689220. That means one person can answer “what do I walk away with” and “what does the next payment look like” in the same conversation, instead of an agent and a lender who have never spoken to each other guessing at each other’s half.

In the DeSoto competitive set, nobody else can do that.

Every seller asks the same first question. Almost none of them get a straight answer to it.

What a real answer covers:

• What the house lists for, off a walk-through and closed comps rather than a model
• What you net at three price points, after commission, title and seller-paid costs
• What is on the property at DCAD and the county that changes your closing number
• What that net qualifies you for on the next house, at current rates
• The order the two transactions have to happen in, and what happens if one slips

The DeSoto-specific one

The tax deferral that lands at the closing table.

Texas Tax Code §33.06 lets a homeowner who is 65 or older, disabled, or a qualified disabled veteran defer property taxes on their homestead. It is filed as a notarized affidavit with DCAD. In a city where the median home is thirty years old and a lot of owners have been in place for decades, it is more common than most agents realize.

DCAD states it plainly: “A tax deferral only postpones payments; it does not cancel the property taxes.” Interest accrues at 5% a year. A lien stays on the property. Once you no longer own or occupy the home, everything deferred — taxes, penalties and interest — becomes due after 180 days.

Here is why it matters more than anything else on this page. A deferral does not show up as “delinquent taxes” in the ordinary sense. Sellers frequently do not mention it because they do not think of it as debt. Heirs selling a parent’s house often do not know it exists at all. It surfaces at the title commitment, weeks into a contract, as a five-figure number nobody planned for.

DCAD also notes that if there is a mortgage on the property, the lender has to be willing to honor the deferral in the first place. That is worth confirming rather than assuming.

A second deferral, §33.065, is open to any homestead owner but covers only the tax on value above 105% of the prior year’s appraised value, and accrues at 8%. It carries no 180-day grace period after you stop owning and occupying.

While we are at the county

The rest of what gets checked

• Exemption status. The school district homestead exemption is $140,000, with an additional $60,000 for owners 65 or older or disabled — $200,000 combined off school taxable value (Tax Code §11.13, as raised in 2025)
• The over-65 ceiling. It is portable to your next Texas homestead, it scales by percentage rather than transferring as a fixed dollar amount, and you have to apply for it
• Whether the ceiling is inflating your listing. A long-time senior owner’s tax bill is a false comparable — the buyer will pay on the new assessed value
• Open permits and liens at the city and county
• Which of the three school districts the address actually sits in, which is a disclosure item here and not a city-level fact

Confirm any specific deferral, exemption or ceiling with DCAD and the Dallas County Tax Office. They are separate agencies and a tax certificate does not necessarily surface a deferral on its own.

One step

Sit down with the person who can run both sides.

What you would clear on this house, and what the next payment actually looks like — in one conversation, from one person who is licensed to answer both. Bring the address and whatever you already know about the next move.

No fee. No obligation to list. If the honest answer is that you should wait, or that a cash offer is right for your situation, that is what you will hear.