excessive building setbacks affecting land value

[CherRD]

What is the name of your state? PA

For the purposes of my general inquiry, urban residential is defined as an district with approximately 85% + single family homes.

You’re about to perform an appraisal on an “urban residential” property.

The property is a 75’ x 120’ corner lot and has built thereon an 80 year old, extremely well maintained home.

The home is set 15’ from the front street and located in the far left corner of the lot (approximately 5’ from an adjacent “interior” lot)

There also exists an 80+ year old, badly deteriorating 1-car garage, set smack dab in the middle of the property; being approx. 10’ behind the rear foundation (& approx. 20’ from the side) of the home.

OK, you view the land, you view the home & garage, you make your neighborhood comparisons, sales comparisons, etc. and come up with a good & fair appraisal. Correct?

My question is, what if the appraiser/assessor knew/should have known, found out/should have found out that the “powers that be” had imposed restrictive building restrictions on this property? Building restrictions so severe that, in fact the only way the homeowner or “prospective buyer” could build ANYTHING, EVER would be in the section shown in the attached diagram! (Shows a 50’ x 100’ lot just for averaging purposes for the area I live in)

Wouldn’t these restrictions have a DIRECT bearing on the property assessment, especially since one of the greatest values in residential property is its build ability?


Tried 4 times to attach drawing. Ain't happening. LOL
Here's the deal
Take a piece of paper; accept that it is 50 x 100 foot lot.
Fold (side to side) in half (representing 25' side setback/corner side)
Fold top down a little over 1/3 of the paper (representing 35' front setback)
Fold other side to what would be approx 5' down entire side.
Fold bottom up 40% of entire sheet.
NOW, WHAT YOU'LD HAVE LEFT is a small scrap of paper! 20' x 25'
OF BUILDABLE PROPERTY - OUT OF A 50' X 100' LOT!

 

[HomeGuru]

What is the name of your state? PA

For the purposes of my general inquiry, urban residential is defined as an district with approximately 85% + single family homes.

You’re about to perform an appraisal on an “urban residential” property.

The property is a 75’ x 120’ corner lot and has built thereon an 80 year old, extremely well maintained home.

The home is set 15’ from the front street and located in the far left corner of the lot (approximately 5’ from an adjacent “interior” lot)

There also exists an 80+ year old, badly deteriorating 1-car garage, set smack dab in the middle of the property; being approx. 10’ behind the rear foundation (& approx. 20’ from the side) of the home.

OK, you view the land, you view the home & garage, you make your neighborhood comparisons, sales comparisons, etc. and come up with a good & fair appraisal. Correct?

My question is, what if the appraiser/assessor knew/should have known, found out/should have found out that the “powers that be” had imposed restrictive building restrictions on this property? Building restrictions so severe that, in fact the only way the homeowner or “prospective buyer” could build ANYTHING, EVER would be in the section shown in the attached diagram! (Shows a 50’ x 100’ lot just for averaging purposes for the area I live in)

Wouldn’t these restrictions have a DIRECT bearing on the property assessment, especially since one of the greatest values in residential property is its build ability?

**A: so what is your point?
*************

Tried 4 times to attach drawing. Ain't happening. LOL
Here's the deal
Take a piece of paper; accept that it is 50 x 100 foot lot.
Fold (side to side) in half (representing 25' side setback/corner side)
Fold top down a little over 1/3 of the paper (representing 35' front setback)
Fold other side to what would be approx 5' down entire side.
Fold bottom up 40% of entire sheet.
NOW, WHAT YOU'LD HAVE LEFT is a small scrap of paper! 20' x 25'
OF BUILDABLE PROPERTY - OUT OF A 50' X 100' LOT!

**A: I tried an ended up with a small white origami crane.

 

[CherRD]

my point

My point is if my property was assessed at a certain value on which we are paying certain taxes, but the property is NOT BUILDABLE, the assessed value is wrong, right?

Your orgami would be right...you would end up with a very SMALL piece of paper, representing the area upon which we can build.

 

[HomeGuru]

Re: my point

My point is if my property was assessed at a certain value on which we are paying certain taxes, but the property is NOT BUILDABLE, the assessed value is wrong, right?

**A: right, especially if the property is really not buildable meaning you cannot build anything on it.
*****************

Your orgami would be right...you would end up with a very SMALL piece of paper, representing the area upon which we can build.

**A: what do I do with it now?

 

[CherRD]

Let me try again.

When an appraiser looks at a piece of property with a nice house and a falling down garage, he/she makes a certain assessment.
Now, a new buyer buys the house (going by the assessment value) and shortly thereafter decides to knock down the old junky garage and build a 2-car garage to the side of the house/with the back of the garage even with the back of the house. It will look great, be practical & increase the value of the property. BUT the new owners get told that they CAN'T build anything on the property because of the setbacks! So what do you have? A 70' x 120' piece of property that can NEVER have anything else built on it except the existing house.

 

[HomeGuru]

Re: Let me try again.

When an appraiser looks at a piece of property with a nice house and a falling down garage, he/she makes a certain assessment.
Now, a new buyer buys the house (going by the assessment value) and shortly thereafter decides to knock down the old junky garage and build a 2-car garage to the side of the house/with the back of the garage even with the back of the house. It will look great, be practical & increase the value of the property. BUT the new owners get told that they CAN'T build anything on the property because of the setbacks! So what do you have? A 70' x 120' piece of property that can NEVER have anything else built on it except the existing house.

**A: ok, so what is your point? Do you want to sue the appraiser? Do you want to apply for a zoning variance?
Do you want to continue making origami figures?

 

[CherRD]

No, I don't want to sue anyone!

My point is I am trying to figure out "property values"

Is a residential property that is 70 x 120; but is only buildable on 500 sq. feet of LESS value than the adjacent property that is 70 x 120 and is buildable on over 2,000 sq. feet. It's a fair tax assessment problem, that's all.

 

[HomeGuru]

Re: No, I don't want to sue anyone!

My point is I am trying to figure out "property values"

Is a residential property that is 70 x 120; but is only buildable on 500 sq. feet of LESS value than the adjacent property that is 70 x 120 and is buildable on over 2,000 sq. feet. It's a fair tax assessment problem, that's all.

**A: yes, the inferior property is worth less, or worthless unless you could sell a huge dog house the size of a 2 car garage.
What you need is a good appraisal and use the appraisal as support evidence in filing a real property tax appeal.

 

[CherRD]

Bingo

Thank you.

My goal, although I'm just a homeowner/housewife, was/is to bring to light the fact that when any appraiser is considering the "value" of a piece of property, he/she simply must take into account (especially in a single family neighborhood) whether or not the prospective buyer/taxpayer can actually build something on their property.

At this point, my husband & I can never have anything more on our 70' x 120' lot than our house.

Plus, the house, as it currently sits, is illegal. If it burned to the ground, or if we needed to otherwise tear it down, we would be forced to rebuild 35' back from the front street. This would require cutting down trees, destroying our backyard/garden, etc.. It's a mess. We want to put up a 2-car garage at the side (about 15' away (due to a hill/slope/mound abutting the driveway side) but WE CAN'T do it legally.

I would like to see legislation initiated whereby appraisers would be required to "take into account" restrictive setbacks, because they can render property impotent!

We have corner properties in our 100 year old community that are only 35 wide. Heck, with a 25' setback down the entire side of their property (+all the other restrictions) they literally don't have room for a doghouse.

THANK YOU for understanding me. It's hard sometimes to convey the message without face-to-face. Again, I'm not a legal expert, I'm just trying to figure out where a government is permitted to prohibit our use of 80% of our property. It's downright communistic. (Is that a word. LOL) + appraisers, to be acurate, should be informed about restrictions when they make their appraisals, don't you think?

Again, Thanks for bearing with my inadequacies in explaning my situation.

 

[HomeGuru]

You should touch bases with your state real estate appraisal licensing office, appraisal associations, NAR, your government officials etc.

 

[CherRD]

Thank you, I will.

You know, we even went around and got a petition to remove the restrictions (216 signatures in less than a week - got them 1 week before council meeting & after attending work session to complain) and these nuts won't crack... too much power in the hands of a few old farts! Guess they like to harass the property owners & collect them variance fees! Trust me, when we went around for signatures, we heard it all! It's sick, really.

Anywho, thanks again! I think I'll contact my bank, they would probably be real interested in knowing they're financing a pig-in-a-poke! They may even get on the band wagon to insist that an appraiser use property restrictions when evaluation land!

 

[HomeGuru]

Ok, good luck to you.
I have been waiting to ask you this questiom. Why did you dye your hair from black to blonde? You look like Greg Allman from the back.