By Ann Zeilingold
Real Estate How Seven Days Impact a Purchase SUKKOS IS JUST ONE WEEK of the year, but going from home to home, open house to open house, it is apparent that this one week of yom tov has an impact on the home being purchased. While the wife may be looking at the kitchen, assessing whether there is room for her milchig, fleishig, parve and Shabbos dishes, and a spot for the second refrigerator, and the children will be looking upstairs to see where they can find their own secret place, and of course, choosing their bedrooms, what is the husband doing? He will be walking outside, looking up to see where will he put his sukkah and to assess whether he has to cut down any trees for it to be under the stars. And that’s not all: He’s also checking whether the location for the sukkah is convenient and large enough to host guests and if it has easy access to the kitchen to facilitate serving. Are you one of those who remember growing up in a more urban area, where the sukkah was in the courtyard shared with other families a few flights down, or on a porch (and only a few feet of the porch didn’t have another porch over it) or on the roof? I grew up in Monsey, and I remember our sukkah being on the grass a few feet away from our apartment, and in another home, the sukkah was outside the kitchen window, and my mother would pass the food out through the window. It seems that those days are gone. Monsey and its surrounding communities have become so accommodating. Many of the condos being built have “sukkah roofs” which turn an interior room into a sukkah one week a year. Others are designed so that one porch is not directly over another. Most homes have porches or decks which are suitable for the sukkah. I know that Pesach is not for a few more months, but that week of the year is also a factor in choosing a home. Many families want a Pesach kitchen, at least another sink and oven, so when perusing a home, a prospective family is also assessing the feasibility of adding a Pesach kitchen.
Find Ann’s real estate column weekly in The Monsey View.
Ann Zeilingold
FM Home Loans
Office:
Vice President
1609 Route 202 Pomona, NY 10970
Mobile:
845-354-9700 914-260-9000 ann@annzeilingold.com
246 / THE MONSEY VIEW / October 3, 2017 www.themonseyview.com / 845.600.8484
Choosing a home is subjective, and personal tastes don’t always factor in the overall appeal, desirability and value of a home.
My question is, do these amenities — the indoor sukkah roof or a space for a Pesach kitchen — add to the value of a home? And can an appraiser appraise a home with an indoor sukkah or Pesach kitchen for more than a similar home in the same area without these amenities? Robert Adler of Adler Associates, an appraiser in Monsey, says, “There is no meaningful, quantifiable contributory value for either of these features in the general population of market participants. Some select families may pay slightly more for the indoor sukkah, but there are so few of them that it is not feasible to formulate an adjustment factor that could be used in an appraisal.” Keller William Realtor Moshe Einhorn opines, “I am hearing a lot from clients asking for a Pesach kitchen (or at least a space for it), but they are not asking for an indoor sukkah.” He added, “Some of the women absolutely refuse an indoor sukkah, because by hanging the decorations, the paint will be damaged.” Having these accommodations in a home should not play any part in the loan approval, except if there are more than two kitchens in a single-family home, i.e. mother-daughter home and an additional Pesach kitchen. So to summarize: One person’s wish list may be on the “absolutely no” list of another person. Choosing a home is subjective, and personal tastes don’t always factor in the overall appeal, desirability and value of a home.