Summer Kitchen stip

[Webbed Feet]

Things are not always as the "appear". None of us are trying to get out of doing our job!

If there is Any NYC appraiser on this forum that has ever once conditioned a summer kitchen to inspection, please speak up. My mentors both have over 25+ years in the market. Neither has ever done a Thing with the summer kitchen except mention its existence in the appraisal and the fact that it doesn't adversely affect marketability. That's what I was taught and this is the first time it's ever come back. Client believes that the reason it did was because the reviewer is in Mumbai....

One of the most tiresome statements any state board dreads hearing, yet once again, is ...... "I was taught to do it like that!"

Time in, as an appraiser, is meaningless when appraisers long ago became afraid to cause any waves or issues by actually researching anything regarding any issue clients did not like to hear about that might cause a need for a "subject to" condition.

Funny, two mentors and neither of them has ever studied the issue of summer kitchens even so much as to see if they add value if legal, or do something else if not legal. They just "mention" them and never check I take it? Perhaps a third or fourth mentor should be considered.

 

[HF Mudd]

Things are not always as the "appear". None of us are trying to get out of doing our job!

If there is Any NYC appraiser on this forum that has ever once conditioned a summer kitchen to inspection, please speak up. My mentors both have over 25+ years in the market. Neither has ever done a Thing with the summer kitchen except mention its existence in the appraisal and the fact that it doesn't adversely affect marketability. That's what I was taught and this is the first time it's ever come back. Client believes that the reason it did was because the reviewer is in Mumbai....

I don't condition a basement kitchen to inspection - I condition it to removal or proof of legality. My earlier remark is utilized in order to show that my research cannot prove it's legality one way or the other.

I have seen CO's in NYC for legal basement kitchens, although it is a rare occurance.

Given the chance of fire coupled with lack of egress from a basement with a kitchen, I have no stomach for the potential liability.

 

[Kevin Mc]

Given the chance of fire coupled with lack of egress from a basement with a kitchen, I have no stomach for the potential liability.

.....rental unit? bye bye stove. Kosher kitchen and Italian kitchen (holidays,summer/fall sauce making) in a SFR with 2 points of egress isn't a problem and the building department won't even make a trip to cite the owners. Seriously, there are tens of thousands of addtional stoves in NYC. Only when they are being utilized daily by illegal tenants are they problematic.

 

[HF Mudd]

.....rental unit? bye bye stove. Kosher kitchen and Italian kitchen (holidays,summer/fall sauce making) in a SFR with 2 points of egress isn't a problem and the building department won't even make a trip to cite the owners. Seriously, there are tens of thousands of addtional stoves in NYC. Only when they are being utilized daily by illegal tenants are they problematic.

Agreed - although your last sentence may ruffle a few feathers!

 

[Mike Boyd]

Using a name such as "summer" kitchen is asking for trouble. So, if it's a summer only amenity, do you only value it for 3 months out of the year?

I would compare it to a permanantly built outside BBQ. How many of us give specific value to a BBQ?

 

[Webbed Feet]

One thing threads like this have reinforced in my mind, many appraisers need to question what they have been taught. Perhaps they should go back to those that taught them and ask the one over-ripe questions they never asked of their mentors in the first place, and those questions are "Who taught you and what made them qualified to do so?"

One of the failings of this trade is times change, things change, and hordes of so-called "Mentors" didn't change with them. Or the motivations of those "Mentors," and their "Mentors" before them had nothing at all to do with outstanding appraisal work and reporting, but rather everything to do with playing any amount of politics needed in order to keep business by placating the lending machines so that no cog was ever disrupted. To me, these things are facts, and precisely why all the GSE's, other than the VA, have taken very foolish paths in allowing the wolves involved in servicing loans to get to pick out the sheep involved in providing the appraisal reports.

 

[Riick]

Using a name such as "summer" kitchen is asking for trouble. So, if it's a summer only amenity, do you only value it for 3 months out of the year?

I would compare it to a permanantly built outside BBQ. How many of us give specific value to a BBQ?

If you had a relative from the Old Country, or a tradition about the 2nd kitchen, or needed it for certain religious holidays, you'd give it a lot more value than a brick BBQ.
No offense, but it's not suposed to be what you think it's worth, but what the potential buyers for that property (in NY, not CA) want & like & will pay for.