For a room to be used as a kitchen, as I see it, it has to have two things: electricity and running water. All else is extra. And based on where it is located and the utility, maybe those are not necessary.
Give me a room with electricity and running water and I can use it as a kitchen during a 9 day fishing trip. Granted, it may not have Sub-Zero appliances and all of the fancy stuff you see in the cooking shows, but it can and will function as a kitchen.
As an appraiser, that is all that I am concerned with in forming an opinion of value. If a house has a C of O issued in 1992 and now, at todays inspection, there is no stove or refrigerator or, heaven forbid, no microwave, it's still called a kitchen in my report.
So you have a house with no appliances in the kitchen but you have counter-tops and cabinets and sinks. What are you going to do? Will you condition the report on the installation of fridge and stove and ovens etc.? Will you require all of these to be installed so you can give a value? If so, on what authority do you require all of this to be done? Remember that when you condition a report, it is typically for one of two reasons: to clarify a condition or to correct a condition. If there are no appliances in the kitchen area, you do not need clarification. So you think that you need to correct the condition. My question is simple: One what do you base your requirement for the spending of hundreds and maybe thousands of dollars? Does FNMA or Freddie or USDA or FHA require that there be a stove and refrigerator in the house in order for you to give a value? If not, where do you get your authority for requiring these things be added. You say it is a requirement of the C of O. Very well, are you familiar with all of the other requirements for a C of O and did you inspect the house to ascertain if all of these requirements were met? If not, then you have held yourself out as an authority on C of O requirements and have not done your due diligence in inspecting the property.
My point is this: So much of the nit picky stuff laid out in appraisal reports is simply appraiser ego rearing its ugly head. Keep the job simple and within the boundaries of your qualifications. No appliances in a kitchen? You want appliances in a kitchen and see their absence as functional, then so state in the report, fully explain why you think this way and dock the value the cost to cure. Then be prepared to defend yourself if challenged. If it were an appraisal on my house, I would scream bloody murder as an unreasonable adjustment/requirement that is not founded on any specific requirement in the lending guidelines or the Supplemental Standards. I doubt that peer review would support such a conditioning of a report based only on the lack of stove and refrigerator in a kitchen.
