I'm trying to find information on a house that I'm currently renting but am going to make an offer on. I'd like to find out how long the current owner has had the property and what he bought it for as well as the yearly taxes on it. I know this is public information but the county tax assessor/collector site just pops up "unauthorized user" when I type out the address (I live in TX if this makes any difference). Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? How can I get this information?

You could probably get a local Realtor to look it up for you.

You could also call the tax assessors office and ask what the taxes are.

What the current owner paid for the house whenever he bought it is irrelevant to what you're going to pay for it.

You should be looking at similar properties that have sold and actually closed in the past 6 months.

What prior Taxes were also not an effective value point. In most states, the real estate property taxes would be recalculated the for new tax base the year following your purchase. In most areas you can find a significant change because many locations have limits than can occur during an owners time of ownership. When sold it is a whole new ball game.

Just hire a professional to work with you on putting in an offer on the property and to negotiate terms for you. A Realtor will be able to tell you about all of the current comparable available listings and sold listings in the area. The tax info of what the owner paid for is irrelevant.

Is the seller desperate and needs to sell?

It doesn't matter what the seller paid for it current market value is what they want for the house.If you want to try and steal the house just tell the homeowner you want to buy it but will not go above x and if they don't want to sell get an agent,go look for a fixer upper and buy something else if you want a deal.

One way you could find out what they paid is to look up the deed at the courthouse and see what price they put in there.Sometimes they will put 1.00 so you don't know what they paid when the deed is recorded but in Ga at least we have a transfer tax that is listed on the document and fromt hat you can find out how much they paid for the house.

Even if you know what they paid for it then they might have taken out a second mortgage on the home,refinanced the first mortgage,or have liens against the property

I can't stand it when a buyer tell me "they only paid X for it 5 years ago". You want to penalize someone for making a smart purchase? You also don't know if they inherited the house. What if they paid $0 for it? What they paid is irrelevant.