ANSI beef

[Tom4value]

Back in the day, they came out with FHA guides for inspections and appraisers in my class panicked. I remember thinking, “you mean you don’t do that now? Geez!” I remember thinking the same thing in March before ANSI became the law of the Fannie Mae land. “Hell, I have been doing that since day 1!”

I am now doing my CE courses and one of them is ANSI. I have found that I have just been “pretty good” at following it to the letter. A couple of examples are:

1. “minimum height to measure second floor of sloping ceiling is 5’ with minimum of 7’ of ceiling height being at least 50% of floor. “

ok, fine. Good to know but I know a lot of older houses in my market have like 6 feet. Buyers still ok with it.

2. “Outside dimensions are measured to nearest tenth of a foot.”
Ok, most oldest houses are not entirely square, always rounded to nearest foot.

3. “For attached condos, use inside dimensions and find out thickness of common walls and divide by 2.”
Ok, or use condo docs, like buyers.

You may have seen my problem. We appraisers are trying to estimate the market value based on buyer’s motivations. Buyers don’t adhere to these rules. They adhere to functional opinions. ANSI is designed to be standard. Buyers are not. If we arrive at a value that is not in line with buyers, we are not doing our job!

 

[chad hampton]

That’s a legit concern. Been mine from the start. We have taken the local aspect and nuances out of what we do.

 

[J Grant]

Back in the day, they came out with FHA guides for inspections and appraisers in my class panicked. I remember thinking, “you mean you don’t do that now? Geez!” I remember thinking the same thing in March before ANSI became the law of the Fannie Mae land. “Hell, I have been doing that since day 1!”

I am now doing my CE courses and one of them is ANSI. I have found that I have just been “pretty good” at following it to the letter. A couple of examples are:

1. “minimum height to measure second floor of sloping ceiling is 5’ with minimum of 7’ of ceiling height being at least 50% of floor. “

ok, fine. Good to know but I know a lot of older houses in my market have like 6 feet. Buyers still ok with it.

2. “Outside dimensions are measured to nearest tenth of a foot.”
Ok, most oldest houses are not entirely square, always rounded to nearest foot.

3. “For attached condos, use inside dimensions and find out thickness of common walls and divide by 2.”
Ok, or use condo docs, like buyers.

You may have seen my problem. We appraisers are trying to estimate the market value based on buyer’s motivations. Buyers don’t adhere to these rules. They adhere to functional opinions. ANSI is designed to be standard. Buyers are not. If we arrive at a value that is not in line with buyers, we are not doing our job!

We can compensate for market reaction of buyers with making a line item adjustment.

A buyer may pay X $ for a house because the 6 foot tall dorm area under ceiling is used for a kids bedroom. In ANSI, we do not include it in main dwelling living area, but we can put it on the grid as aline item of additional area, and assign the value to it as a line item adjustment.

 

[Fernando]

We can compensate for market reaction of buyers with making a line item adjustment.

A buyer may pay X $ for a house because the 6 foot tall dorm area under ceiling is used for a kids bedroom. In ANSI, we do not include it in main dwelling living area, but we can put it on the grid as aline item of additional area, and assign the value to it as a line item adjustment.

How do we know comps have 6 foot ceilings for comparison?

 

[Dublin ohio]

How do we know comps have 6 foot ceilings for comparison?

Do what you always do. Guess.

 

[Dublin ohio]

With the exception of the 7' ceiling thingy. Dimensional differences would generally result in minimal difference in GLA as compared to the county records in my area. So why worry. YMMV

 

[Fernando]

Do what you always do. Guess.

What's the use of having separate line adjustment when we guess?

 

[Tom4value]

We can compensate for market reaction of buyers with making a line item adjustment.

A buyer may pay X $ for a house because the 6 foot tall dorm area under ceiling is used for a kids bedroom. In ANSI, we do not include it in main dwelling living area, but we can put it on the grid as aline item of additional area, and assign the value to it as a line item adjustment.

Yes, I know and have been doing that. It is just clumsy and adds another factor that could confuse the reader. A lot easier and clearer way would be to just talk about any affect on a 6 foot ceiling at the bottom of page one under physical deficiencies.

 

[J Grant]

Yes, I know and have been doing that. It is just clumsy and adds another factor that could confuse the reader. A lot easier and clearer way would be to just talk about any affect on a 6 foot ceiling at the bottom of page one under physical deficiencies.

I agree, in part but not in full. The appraiser can easily identify the contributory value of any area that must be segregated out by ANSI

But we have to consider that regardless of how a market views a home, the lender is the one who will be stuck owning it in a default . They want to know if ceilings are below 7 feet or certain areas are below grade. Maybe it would affect their lending decision. And some appraisers might have been fudging results, whether intentional or not , making a house GLA larger by including below grade .. Many appraisers were already using ANSI while others were not. Making NSI a requirement puts all the appraisers and their results, on an even and consistent playing field

 

[djd09]

ansi is the anti market standard. nobody uses it, not realtors, brokers, homeowners, sellers, buyers, auditors. it seems fannie wants to put appraisers in a awkward position to be misleading