By Joshua Lobkowicz<\/p>\n
Banks blink. Assessors scratch their heads. How do you establish a value for one-of-a-kind houses that are both lovable and wacky-doodle?<\/h3>\n
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Congratulations! You\u2019ve just built a magic house that looks like it\u2019s made from dollops of whipped cream. Yes, but will buyers love it? There\u2019s no way to determine its value.<\/p>\n
Or maybe you\u2019re trying to insure a house that\u2019s covered in slate\u2013everywhere<\/em>, not just the roof\u2026 How can anyone get a bead on this incomparable home?<\/p>\n Looking for a bank loan to help you complete your underground Hobbit Hole that looks as though it\u2019s straight out of Lord of the Rings<\/em>? \u201cIt\u2019s incomparably cool,\u201d the bank\u2019s appraiser says, \u201cbut perhaps a bit eclectic.\u201d And therein lies the problem, Bilbo Baggins. It\u2019s easier to take the Precious from Gollum than it is to get the recalcitrant real estate valuation schematics to put a price tag on originality.<\/p>\n Particularly if your home is made of a cutting-edge Green material that\u2019s not the expected<\/em> kind of cutting-edge Green material.<\/p>\n Well before the Three Little Pigs cut their first deal with Freddie Mac, the market has been suspicious of a house made of straw.<\/p>\n \u201cMy house in Beals is made of straw bales,\u201d quips Robert Patterson. \u201cIt\u2019s best suited for year-round living. Due to the thick walls and a lot of lime plaster on the inside and outside, it changes temperature very slowly.\u201d<\/p>\n His environmental readings and low heating costs are sensational; he only has to run a wood heater for short periods of two to three days in the winter. Extraordinary at night, the house delights and surprises the eye like a postmodern hunk of Swiss cheese.<\/p>\n And what was his reward for daring to be different? \u201cThere was definitely some talk that \u2018someone was building a strange house\u2019 in the neighborhood,\u201d he says. \u201cI knew of the problem [of getting a mortgage] before we built. Since I did a large part of the work, the dollar investment was not very large, so that was not a hardship.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPeople who want to build an alternative home often have a vision of what that\u2019ll be like, but when it comes time to construct it, they have trouble getting mortgages. They usually end up going after private money or using their own. A bank is just not going to do it,\u201d says Tom Landry of Benchmark Realty.<\/p>\n Mortgage consultant Jeff Hess agrees. \u201cThe fact that they are incomparable can be the biggest stumbling block for a lender. The bank\u2019s concern is whether or not they could sell the home, and this is true of any unique property, regardless of how smart or energy saving, because the potential audience is so much smaller.\u201d<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not just contemporary houses, either. John Calvin Stevens\u2019s Horace F. Farnham House at 318 Brighton Avenue has dumbfounded onlookers for years for its 100-percent pink slate exterior. Just because the original owner who built this mansion in 1902 was a local building materials magnate and no doubt had connections to get the slate, how hard is it for 21st-century owners to keep it in good nick? Appraised for $616,000 by the city of Portland, who knows what its market value might be if it weren\u2019t sheathed in such a rare, expensive coat?<\/p>\n Jim Sysko, owner of the Tolkienesque underground house in Newry, makes no such claims to tradition with his creation. \u201cA snow mound was actually the original frame for the house. We covered it with sawdust and plastic so it wouldn\u2019t melt; then we started applying concrete.\u201d The result is a quiet, energy-efficient, two-bedroom, two-bath, dome-shaped house, nestled into a hillside. \u201cIt\u2019s warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It\u2019s everything you want a house to be.\u201d<\/p>\n Except appraisable. And even if you can get financing, you have to deal with subcontractors shaking their heads.<\/p>\n \u201cI had an exterminator once who was both terrified and enraged at the sight of it\u2013\u2018What kind of house is this? I can\u2019t exterminate this!\u2019 He practically fled,\u201d says architect Marcia Wake of her curvaceous Sculpture House, hidden away in the Windham woods. \u201cIt\u2019s almost traditionally wood framed,\u201d she says, though the walls, inside and out, have all been hand-plastered into smooth, swooping surfaces.<\/p>\n Considering the difficulties encountered by these \u2018incomparables\u2019 as a whole, what does it say about our institutional inability to accept change or even a fabulous new idea?<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be a new idea,\u201d says Wiscasset\u2019s Roy Farmer. \u201cI had a devil of a time selling a historic water view home made of bricks that just happened to be shaped like an octagon,\u201d\u2013the Capt. George Scott House, built in 1855.<\/p>\n You can imagine the potential buyers responding to the unconventional room sizes: \u2018Where could I put the entertainment center with our 96-inch flat-screen TV\u2019? The first brick comparable that comes to mind is designed by Thomas Jefferson in southern Virginia\u2013his retirement mansion, Poplar Forest. Value: priceless<\/em>.<\/p>\n So in these dark woods you do the best you can. \u201cWhen it comes to appraisals, we need to go out and find homes that are as comparable as possible,\u201d says Chris Karageorge of Beacon Appraisals. \u201cIn Maine, that isn\u2019t easy\u2013especially with homes that are very unique unto themselves.\u201d So how do appraisers figure it out when it comes to a home with straw walls or bedrooms beneath six feet of earth? \u201cWe pick key features and try and find them in other properties to demonstrate that that facet is comparable; we look at shape and size, bedroom count, location, etcetera. Sometimes when dealing with a unique home you need three, four, five, or more comparables.<\/p>\n \u201cSome appraisers are intimidated by that process,\u201d Karageorge says. \u201cAnd lenders often don\u2019t want to pay the fee that is appropriate to appraise a unique home which needs multiple comparables to value.\u201d<\/p>\n Worse than that, Hess says, is, \u201cA lot of lenders set overall policies to shy away from homes with non-traditional qualities.\u201d<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t matter<\/em>, then, that these homes are super energy-efficient?<\/p>\n \u201cPeople can be very myopic when it comes to solving the energy crisis,\u201d says real estate agent Avery Caldwell. \u201cThis is Maine after all, not San Francisco.\u201d<\/p>\n Either way, we\u2019re still in America. As Hess puts it, \u201cLenders will have to open up to follow the trend or risk losing out on that market.\u201d<\/p>\n
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