Unique Residential Construction Questions: A-frame And Geodesic Homes

[sunster]

Back in the late 80's when I was still very new and green in the biz, I received an order which turned out to be a geodesic dome. I recall being somewhat confused at the time as I tried to figure out how to tape the damn thing. And calculating the GLA was another battle on its own. The story I got was that the owner was an engineer and he built the house using a kit. Luckily, the owner was able to provide the plans with a GLA figure, so I went with that. I sought additional help from my mentors, but we never did find any comps even remotely similar to it. So I remember using 9 comps in the report, all of which were various styles of houses.

I still see the property on occasion when I drive through the neighborhood, and it still makes my stomach turn. Fortunately, I have not a an oddball quite like that since.

 

[George Hatch]

I actually had to make a 2nd trip with some graph paper and a tape measure and some post-its so I could measure the ends of the arcs that didn't have any hard corners. The 2nd floor was the worst because it had a catwalk and there wasn't anything straight about that, either. Two floors above grade, and another subgrade floor with an indoor pool and subgrade garage (curving driveway, of course.

I had the architect plans but having run the dimensions up on Apex the numbers didn't even get close to what was stated. Then the dimensions on the construction itself didn't exactly match the plans in a couple areas. Which I guess is to be expected.

Yeah, I lost my @$$ on that fee. I actually did find 4 or 5 more of this general design and construction in the county that had been sold or listed, albeit in very different locations and at different times, so I had some basis for how the market reacted to these attributes when compared to more conventional designs.

Most of the interior walls, all the cabinetry and built-ins had to be built custom onsite; and most of those weren't using straight lines either. The poor guy spent a ton of money to build this house in a gated community and in the end I pinned his value only slightly higher than the conventional construction in the neighborhood. I had to demonstrate the negative though, so those other homes by this same builder were a real gift.

 

[Tim The Enchanter]

Had one in Bel Aire years ago that was all curves. Compound curves. It was less than half built, and I went with the architects plans and figures.
A year or 2 ago I looked it up and it had taken over 10 years to get built. No including the planning process and all that.
I wonder if the owner thinks it was worth it.

 

[glenn walker]

I would have contacted by cousin who is an architect and who doe's a lot of weird stuff , I also would have asked the owner for the plans BUT I never would have taken the liability of trying to measure this beast *** BUT I have to give kudos to any appraiser UNLESS he-she is a licensed architect to measure this property and place the GLA on a sketch and in the report. That's one hell of a good appraiser !!!

 

[Howard Klahr]

You can track down comps for adjustment purposes by contacting architects, companies that sell the kits, as well as area planning and building departments. Once you identify other properties a quick comparison to surrounding sales will provide a marketability adjustment.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

I have appraised two geodesic domes and learned that no fee would have been adequate to compensate for the time and grief.

Amen to that .. Geodesic are the worst followed closely by bermed or underground. It is a hard call which has more market resistance not to mention the lenders go wild and hardly will finance them. We drove sixty miles to find a G Dome and that was a 4th comp. We had one. About third on the list is A frames, followed by log homes and any odd ball will draw fire from the UW...

 

[Meandering]

What is your opinion regarding the impact on value for A-frame and geodesic homes (compared to standard stick-built designs)?

I have a close friend whose appraiser used regular manufactured homes as comps for his geodesic. I know that there are not many of these available to use for comps, but the appraiser did not talk about the impact on value or marketability.
I don't really know how to answer these questions.
Would most appraiser use standard homes as comps? Are there studies that you know about that discuss any impacts on value?

We have Geo-domes, round houses as in the picture above, A frames, and all kinds of weirdness, and not as high quality as the California crew.

Manufactured homes are not the comps. Most of these weirdo's are stick built on site.
I did a study of Geodesic homes out here a few years ago, and was flabbergasted to find that the ownership retention on them is higher than any other style of home. From memory I can tell you about a half dozen of them, none have been listed for sale in over 15 years. We have sufficient A frame sales here year over year to show that they while they are not the most desirable, the larger ones command premium prices, and while the smaller ones are on the lower end of pricings. But, you would expect that with smaller anyway.

Like logs, you might have to go farther afield for comps, or get those distant sales and compare them to other homes in their markets to see if there is market reaction to the style. Some homes do react differently, some do not. It just all depends on the location and your local buyers. Here we have a big vacation home market, which is most likely the reason we have so many "different" styles of homes.

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[CANative]

Kind of a hassle Howard.

This one started out as a dome but morphed into an abomination. I did the best I could with a 100' tape and a sheet of ten grid. A two hour epic battle.

 

[CANative]

Comps

 

[George Hatch]

That's a pretty good set of comps for that thing.