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Basement Bedroom

It's all about market reaction. If the market is dumb enough to think it's a legal code complying bedroom, they might pay more. That's where good comps come in. :)
 
NJ Valuator said:
Basement room being used as a bedroom, but has no egress window or any window for that matter within the room itself. There is an egress window in another part of the basement. The town recognizes this room as a legal bedroom. How can this be?
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It's not above grade and counted as GLA. Even if it was a walkout basement it's still below grade and not counted as GLA.

It's going to have to be entered on the separate basement line item of the 1004 with the contributing value coming from the comps. That's where the rubber meets the road.... who cares what it's called. Observe, report, explain.
 
I'm looking at a fixer upper to buy and around here main floor is on second level and downstairs called basement (may not under ANSI definition).
As an investor, I would remodel the basement. Haven't seen it yet but if it makes house more valuable by adding a window to make one of the rooms into a bedroom, I would do it.
 
About twenty-five years ago there was an appraiser here in town who appraised a one bedroom house with a basement. He didn't have any one bedroom comps, so he had the brilliant idea to call the basement a "bedroom" as well. After all, most of the people in that neighborhood were going to "use it for a bedroom", right? He then compared it with two bedroom comps and hoped for the best. The appraisal was underwritten and accepted, the loan closed, and everyone was happy. Then, the new homeowner decided to make that basement "bedroom" the children's bedroom and right after they moved in, their four-year-old child became deathly ill and had to be rushed to the ER. Come to find out, there was a water heater down there that was not vented properly for some reason and carbon monoxide was building up and poisoning the child, which ER blood tests later confirmed. The appraiser would've been fine had he just called it a basement "recreation room" but as he decided to call it a "bedroom" he opened himself up to considerable liability by telling people he considered that room suitable to use as sleeping quarters. Can't remember the monetary settlement offhand now but as I recall I thought he got off really lucky at the time because who knows what kind of developmental problems that child suffered from for the rest of his life. Room labels are important.
 
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Mike Ault said:
About twenty-five years ago there was an appraiser here in town who appraised a one bedroom house with a basement. He didn't have any one bedroom comps, so he had the brilliant idea to call the basement a "bedroom" as well.
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What's going to happen in this situation if a PDC happens to call this a bedroom and the desk bound appraiser doesn't catch or understand it's below grade?
 
No egress from the window, I don’t call it a bedroom. Don’t know if I have any liability but why chance it?

Broker says, “but the owner used it as a bedroom for 20 years!”. I give the broker a 2 point response. 1. Owners can use it for whatever they want, their house. 2. Doesn’t matter because I don’t value it differently between a bedroom and a den. Broker only cares about #2 and we both leave happy.
 
Surf Cat said:
What's going to happen in this situation if a PDC happens to call this a bedroom and the desk bound appraiser doesn't catch or understand it's below grade?
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Never worked with a PDC. Can an appraiser ask questions for further clarification with PDCs?
 
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