Michigan homeowners belong to the quiet club of capped-basis states: Proposal A has limited your taxable value’s growth to inflation since 1994, and after twenty or thirty years your tax bill reflects a fraction of what your house is worth. Sell, and the next owner "uncaps" to full value — but so do you, at full Texas value, the day you buy in DFW. Like the Californians and Floridians before you in this series, you are trading a worn-in cap for a new structure, and the trade only prices correctly if you know both halves.
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Talk to a Specialist →| Line | Michigan | Texas / DFW | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Property tax structure | ~1.3–1.6% effective on TAXABLE value — which Prop A has held to inflation since your purchase; long-tenured owners pay on a deeply discounted base | Full current value at ~1.8–2.5% — then the $200K senior shield and the dollar-freeze on the school line | Run YOUR numbers: a 1990s-vintage Michigan basis often means the bill rises here despite a cheaper-than-coastal house. The Texas freeze then stops its biggest line — a harder cap than inflation-tracking, once seated |
| Income tax on retirement income | 4.25% flat — but the 2023 rollback restored pension/retirement exemptions, fully phased in for tax year 2026: most retirement income is now deductible again | None | Texas, modestly — the restored exemption shrank this line to $0–$3K/yr for most retirees. (Anyone whose plan predates the rollback should re-run it) |
| The house trade | Sell metro Detroit/Grand Rapids at $250K–$450K | Buy new single-story at $350K–$500K | Like Ohio, often a trade UP in price — the value corridor keeps it closest to even |
| Winter line items | Heating bills, the snow service or the snowblower, the roof ice dams | A dramatic August and a hail deductible | $1,500–$3,000/yr of cold-climate carrying costs quietly disappear — a line most ledgers forget |
| Estate/inheritance | Neither | Neither | Wash |
The planning sequence that matters: because your Michigan bill is artificially low and your first Texas bill is full-value, the gap year between selling capped and seating the over-65 freeze is the expensive one. Movers already 65 file the Texas homestead and over-65 exemptions immediately and compress that gap to months; movers at 62 should budget the uncapped years explicitly rather than discover them. The value-corridor entries — Union Park, Timberbrook, Mansfield with its double freeze — minimize both the uncapped exposure and the trade-up.
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The pattern mirrors Ohio with one addition: lake people stay lake people. Ladera Little Elm\u2019s Lewisville peninsula and Mira Lagos on Joe Pool answer the Great Lakes reflex at DFW scale, while Robson\u2019s club-town texture takes the rest. Start at the total cost table with your uncapping math done first.
Your Prop A basis versus the full-value Texas year one, the freeze timeline at your age, and the shortlist that minimizes the gap.
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