What makes one property tax consultant more successful than another?

The short answer is experience, specialization, communication, and motivation. NTRG seeks out the best-in-class consultants for its clients. To reach this mark, a consultant must have a distinguished reputation within the jurisdiction(s) he or she works, specialized experience with the property type(s) being assigned by NTRG, exemplary communication skills, and a vested interest in his or her company’s efforts. These distinctions elevate a consultant to NTRG’s definition of “best-in-class”.

What is NTRG's role in the consulting process?

NTRG’s is the Property Tax Management Program for our clients. While we manage all aspects of the contracted services, consultant representations, data gathering and sharing, reporting, and billing, our clients enjoy having only one point of contact.

To achieve the best valuation conclusions and appeal recommendations, NTRG in-house professionals perform valuation analyses alongside our local experts. Our dual-review process is unique to the property tax industry and complements our other services to ensure our clients enjoy the benefit of knowing that true, local knowledge is at work for them in every market across the United States.

In which commercial property types does NTRG specialize?

NTRG’s best-in-class consultants are assigned based on their local expertise and property specialization. As such, we are neither restricted by property type nor a defined talent pool. Examples of property types we represent include: office, hotel and resort (aka hospitality), industrial and warehouse, land, retail and mall, multi-family, manufacturing, vehicle fleets, golf courses, commercial development, and business personal property.

What are my options when hiring a national property tax consultant?

1. Traditional national firm
• Pro: regional expertise; program oversight; additional services; fee consistency.
• Con: no guaranty of local expertise; lacks the flexibility to assign specialized consultants outside of their staff; unable to ensure maximum results provided by local/specialized expertise.
2. Direct your managers to create and monitor their own programs
• Pro: hands-on management of the property’s tax program.
• Con: loss of volume pricing leads to higher fees; lack of consistent contracts and services across the portfolio; manager’s lack of property tax knowledge brings oversight and the proper consultant selection into question; inconsistent billing/reporting provided at the corporate level.
3. Add a Property Tax Manager to your in-house corporate staff
• Pro: local expertise solution; control of consultant selections and additional tax services; central data gathering solution allows for consistent reporting/billing; provides access to technology/data; consistent fee and contractual requirements can be negotiated portfolio-wide.
• Con: the expense of adding staff (payroll, bonuses, taxes, benefits); personnel issues disrupt productivity; staff turnover.
4. Hire NTRG
• Pro: all the benefits of an in-house Property Tax Manager without the cost and challenges of adding staff.
• Con: the longer you wait, the longer you are exposed to paying more property taxes than you should be paying.

Which criteria should be considered when choosing a property tax consultant?

1. Will you get local expertise? Consultants with local expertise have relationships with the jurisdictions and local market knowledge that outsiders lack, thereby producing superior results.
2. Will you get a consultant who understands your property type? The various commercial property types are evaluated in different ways. Ensuring your consultant has expertise in your property type is paramount to producing superior results.
3. Who will be your contact? Depending on the option you choose when hiring a consultant, you can have as many as several contacts to interact with or just one.
4. What are the fees? Most consultants accommodate the fee model desired by their clients. These range from a flat-fee only model where a fee is paid regardless of tax savings to a straight contingency fee model where a fee is due only when tax savings are achieved; some clients prefer a hybrid of the two. Keep in mind that a low-cost fee model without the best consultant representing you will likely result in lost tax savings.
5. What other property tax services do you desire? Not all consultants provide services such as tax bill administration, pre-acquisition reports, budget estimates, preparing/filing property returns, purchase price allocation, litigation support, online access to your data, standardized reporting, cost segregation, or sales and use tax services.