Florida Room or Enclosed Porch

[Bill_FL]

Chris,

I understand what you are doing, however, if I find a room with doors, that is a step down, interior and exterior match the house, its connected to hvac. it is going in GLA.

 

[Chris Colston]

Chris,

I understand what you are doing, however, if I find a room with doors, that is a step down, interior and exterior match the house, its connected to hvac. it is going in GLA.

OK, fine with me....just be consistent and make sure you treat the comps the same way. Have you seen the inside of the comps to know how they are finished? MLS photos are taken to sell the house and usually show the best angle. How do you know the room on the comp doesn't have a wall unit, indoor/outdoor carpeting and some cheap paneling instead of central A/C, ceramic tile and framed walls unless you've seen the inside of the comp?

By my method, everything stays consistent...if the assessor calls it a "Florida room" on the subject or the comps I just place it on the Finished Basement line CONSISTENTLY and make the adjustment based on the sf shown on the assessor's card just like the living area of the main house. My method is based on UTILITY or FUNCTION of the space.

It's not always all about the subject and how the subject's room is finished, you have to consider the comps you are using too.


Side note to Otis and Chuck....take the arguement outside, you guys are local enough to hash that by land line or e-mail. :new_cussing: Thank you, now back to our regular forum bashing.

 

[Bill_FL]

How do you know the room on the comp doesn't have a wall unit, indoor/outdoor carpeting and some cheap paneling instead of central A/C, ceramic tile and framed walls unless you've seen the inside of the comp?

Chris,

I can ask you that same question. Do you think that a "fla room" that is finished to the same level as the house, connected to the main HVAC might bring more $$ in the market than the one you describe above? How is the verification process any different? You still need to know that same info. Just because you put it on a different line does not change that. In fact, if it were me, I would call it a sun room, not a florida room. The term Florida Room kind of gives the impression that the room is not of the same quality as the main home, while a sun room is a room with lots of windows, but finished at the same level as the house. YOu see lots of these on older, traditional style homes, normally just off the living room. They were used as warm rooms (from sun) in winter.

Any way, to stay apples to apples, the verification process of what the comaprable sales have is no different, whether you place this room on another line or include it in GLA.

 

[Lobo Fan]

Sorry to offend you Otis, but the dollar per square foot number is often quite consistent within neighborhoods. If you print out a list of sales, and 9 of 10 are $80-85.00/SF and one or two are over $100.00/SF then you have a pretty good clue about the high and low values for that neighborhood. It used to be that $100.00/SF was a high number for Albuquerque, but now there are many neighborhoods that are over that figure.

I don't use it as a hard and fast rule, just as another indicator of where the fences might be as far as limits go. For example, in this case all of the comps with similar GLA's are within a pretty narrow range of $80-$85.00/SF. I have a contracted price at nearly $120.00/SF. That was a red flag. Besides they put the dollar per square foot on the form, so it must mean something to someone.

As far as manipulating GLA, that is not a practice I personally engage in. You have to assume that the MLS data is close to accurate, unless you go out and measure all your comps too. My fear of being shot or eaten by ferocious dogs precludes me from that activity.

I was actually looking for a little support on my position.

 

[Bill_FL]

Otis and Chuck

I have often wondered about the $per sf, and why we do not use that as the unit of comparison. If we are attempting to replicate the actions of typical buyers and sellers, is that not what most do? When you talk to them, the first thing they bring up is $per foot.

 

[Brad Ellis]

Debora,

I am shocked that no one has told you that thee IS a standard method and you can find it in the ANSI standards- and they have been adopted by Fannie and Freddie.

Read it and do it that way since you have a recognized national method.

If you cannot find this, go the NAIFA website and find the phone number for Dennis Black- he is in or near Port St. Lucie, I think, and he will undoubtedly know. He wrote the NAIFA ANSI course.

Brad

 

[Don Clark]

My Perspective

If it is finished similar to the other rooms in the house that are counted as GLA, has the same or similar amenities such as HVAC, I count it as GLA. We are in a moderate climate. Many folks convert garages. If they are good conversions, I count it as GLA. If they leave up the garage door with insulation between the wall and the exterior garage door, I do not but I do count it as finished area with a cost to cure for a garage reconversion. If the "Florida Room" is just as well finished as the other rooms counted as GLA, it is GLA to me. I do not depend on the assessor to tell me what it is. And, since we have a water table near the surface we have very, very, very few basements. We have lot's of "FROG's"(Finished Room over the garage). Assessors don't even know how big they are. I usually will only count a FROG as GLA if it is a 2 story and open to the second floor like the other rooms. However, if it is a one story, access is only through a stairwell from the first floor, it is not GLA but is a finsihed room that probably will have about the same value as GLA.

 

[Charlotte Dixon]

In our area, "step down" has nothing to do with it. If the Florida Room is heated/AC, and finished like the interior of the house it is counted in GLA.

I also think this is a geographical question/answer. We have a subdivision with 15 year old houses, which when built, had a finished/heated/AC Florida Room option from the get-go. There was an upstate appraiser who came down to our neck-of-the-woods who had the habit of not counting that Florida Room in SFLA and in his reports, he would say "add on" or "adjunct". We local appraisers have always counted that Florida Room in SFLA because we know those Florida Rooms were built when the house was built, finished like the rest of the house, sliding doors or not. What helps in our area, is now our MLS shows different views of the interior of the house. That's been a life-saver for me. The heck with the assessor in our area, that data is usually more wrong than right.

 

[Pamela Crowley (Florida)]

It's NOT just the interior finish!

What is the construction of the walls and roof?????

The structure itself is the BEGINNING of determining if it can be counted as part of the GLA or not!!! If the structure isn't at least equal in quality when compared to the main house, the addition probably should NOT be counted in the GLA no matter how well it's 'finished'.

 

[Charlotte Dixon]

Pam has a good point......What about the roof and the EXTERIOR finish of that Florida Room/Enclosed Porch? That room should not be obviously an "add-on" and have a different type roof, or cover, and different exterior siding.

All of those items further enforce a couple subdivisons in our area, having the Florida Rooms built the same time the houses were built. Yes, they are counted in GLA. Of course, that's another advantage of being a local and working in one area for a number of years. We saw these constructed from the ground up having those Florida Rooms, and now they are 20-30 year old houses.