$25,000 Adjustment for EV Charger

[John Hassler]

When I come across reports llike this what I find even more distressing is the competency of the AMC/Lender who would engage such an appraiser. Those AMC/Lenders should be taken to task, and hard, for not properly screening out those appraisers in the first place.

 

[George Hatch]

Yes, it is a ridculous adjsutment on a $310k property....it implies that the EV charger accounts 8% of the total value of the proeprty which I simply do not beileve in the absence of strong support showing that is plauisible.

Comp 4 is literally 3 times the size of the subject property and sold for $580,000, which is obviously not close to being in the same market segment as a $310,000 purchase, so I am not sure that isolating the effect on value of an EV charger in the market segment which included the $580k home would be all that informative of the market segment that includes the $310k home.

I wouldn't expect that such an amenity would add more than its cost to a $580k home, either. Not to most buyers.

 

[NC Appraising]

I don't know how including a comparable sale that is really not comparable proves the marketability of solar panels on the subject property, but I get that appraisers sometimes do silly things to get past the checklist idiots who really know nothing aside from the checklist.

In my case it was comparable, but in a different neighborhood.

If I didn't use a sale with solar panels it would have gotten rejected. Lenders just want a sale with a similar feature. Learn from the past. Hill not worth dying on. Just showing the BS we have to put up with.

Some lenders and appraisers think that just because there hasn't been a closed sale with the same feature from within the neighborhood to have closed within the past 12 months equates to no value or the feature is not marketable...

 

[George Hatch]

I understand the "just comply" approach. I've done that, too.

But in the OPs example the appraiser isn't actually answering the question of the contributory value of the charger. They're just throwing an irrelevant sale at the report form without taking the additional step of comparing that sale to its own comps which actually would isolate the effect on value of that amenity on that sales transaction. That *analysis* might be but a 5-min process that would have been easy to perform. Totally doable without starving their kids over the fee.

 

[NC Appraising]

Agree.

Just trying to hit the contract price. Typical skippy appraisal.

 

[George Hatch]

Maybe, but another possibility might be to say they didn't put any thought into the nature of the question itself or how to go about actually answering it. They did the hard part (finding a donor). Taking the next step would have been the faster/easier part.

 

[NC Appraising]

Being silly here.

They knew the question and identified the problem to be solved.

Question to themselves....how I'm I going to hit that target?

Problem to be solved: find a wacked sale so that i can make that adjustment to meet the contract price.

George is right. Leave out c4 and used that with a direct sale to derive the adjustment.

Or be honest. Leave it in and say no weight was placed on this sale and was used to include one closed sale with a similar feature. I matched paired c4 with xxxx sales to derive the adjustment.

Fwiw, I've never applied a ev charger adjustment. Not saying they don't contribute to value...

For my prior post, was just being a little sarcastic. There is a breaking point as to when a sale should be used for bracketing purposes and shouldn't. Always a cutt off point before it goes into stupidity land. 300k home comp 700k home.....because it has the same feature.

There have been many of times when it just cannot be done. Explain away and keep your fingers crossed.

 

[Fernando]

Never adjusted for EV chargers and I live in CA.
If reviewers believe in it, more power to the appraiser.

 

[timd354]

I wouldn't expect that such an amenity would add more than its cost to a $580k home, either. Not to most buyers.

One hint that the EV charger probably contributes zero value to the subject property in this case is that the MLS listing for the property did not even mention it.

 

[soucat]

I saw something in an appraisal report yesterday that I have never seen before and that was a $25,000 adjustment made to 3 comparable sales because the subject proeprty (which has a $310,000 contract price) has an electric vehicle charger. From the appraisal photos it looks like a level 2 charger and the cost for install such a level 2 charger should be no more than $1500 ($3500 if a home's electrical panel also needs to be upgraded). Of course there was no explanation in the appraisal report of how the appraiser derived the amount of the adjustment. There was also a fourth "comparable" included in the report that also had an EV charger, but that supposed comp was useless since it literally had 3x the GLA of the subject property and was in superior, gated community.

That’s insane. Are you doing a review of this assignment? Would love to know how they derived that adjustment.