Home being sold furnished

[Metamorphic]

Personal Property at the Subject = Ignore it it.

Personal Property at the Comp = Figure out what it was during verification and back it out of the purchase price like a concession if you think there's sufficient value there to warrant it.

I see this a lot with Tahoe homes. If I think its worth less than $500 I'll just call it no value since I typically round my adjustments to $1000. Otherwise, I'll treat the "sofa, 2 beds, dining table, snow blower" leave behinds as a thousand or two. Basically I'm trying to estimate if I was giving myself a budget to buy some used furnishings how big would it be. Once I had a lake front property comp were they left behind a ski boat. I found the make, model and age from the agent, who had it listed in the contract, called a local boat dealer, and got him to give me a fair used price for the craft, and documented the contact in the report.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Ignore the personal property.

wrong

we're also required to "analyze" the current purchase agreement. There may be differences of opinion about what is contemplated by the word "analyze" but it seems to me that analysis of the contract ought, at a minimum, address the fact that furnishings are included

right. And we can value them and like RSW & Pete points out, it is not difficult to allocate some value to the PP and there is no prohibition to doing so short your own competence. Find out if the client wishes to include them or not. Ditto Condos with a Fridge...may be low visible in market place but do not simply ignore it.

 

[Mr Rex]

Lake properties here often sell furnished and come with a pontoon or bass boat, jetski, a golfcart, and a lawn mower or a combination of the above. One lake has floating docks, which Fannie has specifically deemed as personal property not to be valued with the Real Estate, although they transfer with the property virtually 100% of the time. Some of the nicer aluminum docks are over $50k.

Ignoring the 800 lb gorilla in the room is not an option.

 

[The Bob]

When I sold RE many years ago, I was taught to never f$#% up a RE contract by putting personal property in it. We always used a seprate bill of sale that listed any dollar amount of value (if any, many were just "0"). The BOS was made contingent on the RE closing. I doubt a lender wants to finance furniture for 15-30 years.

 

[J Grant]

Realtors are idiots, but they do put furniture in for a reason, so at closing or after closing the parties can't fight over what was supposed to be included. It is up to the appraiser to ignore furniture or any other item of personal property in a subject sales contract be it a boat or jet ski etc.

More tricky are the comps. Usually cheap or standard quality furniture adds nothing or little to the value. But big ticket items, golf club memberships, boats, docks that are not part of house but leased or the like, that needs to be verified with comps or separated if you see it inflated price over homes that did not include those items . Lavish, expensive furniture or artwork can also add to value of a comp.