Do Barns, Shops and Outbuildings Add Home Value in Overton County?

I'm Bridget Salazar, OC Homegirl. I'm a REALTOR® with The Realty Firm and a Certified Residential Appraiser, and I work across Overton County and the Upper Cumberland.

Almost every seller I meet with a shop or a barn asks me the same thing. How much is that building adding?

It is a fair question and it deserves a real answer. Outbuildings are ordinary here. A metal shop. A pole barn. A detached garage. An equipment shed. A stock barn left over from when the place was farmed.

The answer is never a flat dollar amount per building. It comes from what buyers in Overton County have already paid for properties that had one. Here is how that gets measured.

Start with the idea that does most of the work here. Contributory value.

Contributory value is what one feature adds to the price of the whole property. Not what it cost to build. Not what it would cost to replace today.

Say a seller pours a slab and frames a 30 by 40 shop and spends real money doing it. The question an appraiser asks about it is narrow. Did properties with a building like that sell for more than otherwise similar properties without one?

When the answer is yes, that difference is the contribution. When the nearby sales show no difference, the building contributes little, whatever the invoice said.

I know that is not what a seller wants to hear after writing those checks. It is also the same math a lender's appraiser runs once you are under contract, so it is better to hear it from me early. The way I work it is on my home value page.

Two buildings of the same size can contribute very different amounts. These are the details that decide it.

• Permanence. A building on a slab or a poured foundation is part of the real estate. A portable shed sitting on blocks is usually personal property, and it may leave with you.
• Power. A wired building with its own panel and outlets is useful to far more buyers than one running off an extension cord.
• Water, and a drain if there is one.
• Concrete, and whether the floor is thick enough to work on.
• Door height and width. A door that takes a camper or a tractor is a different building than a door that takes a lawn mower.
• Insulation, heat and air, and any finished space inside.
• Condition and age, and whether the roof and the sheet metal are sound.
• Access. A buyer has to be able to get a trailer to it.

Write all of that down before anybody values your property. Hand the list over at the start. Half of it cannot be seen from the driveway.

There are patterns I run into over and over.

A building in rough shape can read as a cost instead of a feature. A sagging roof over a dirt floor is something a buyer prices out to tear down.

Too much building for the property is another one. A shop that dwarfs a small house narrows the buyer pool rather than widening it. Appraisers call that functional obsolescence, and it shows up as a smaller contribution than the owner expected.

Specialized buildings carry the same risk. A building set up for one trade or one animal only pays off when a buyer wants that exact use.

And several buildings are not several contributions. The second shop rarely adds what the first one did, the same way the tenth acre rarely adds what the first acre did.

A barn by itself is one thing. A barn with cross fencing, water to the field and cleared pasture is something else.

A buyer who wants to keep horses or cattle is buying the whole setup. The barn, the fence, the water, the gates, and ground that will actually grow grass. A good barn next to a pasture grown up in brush never reaches that buyer.

It runs the other way too. Usable fenced acreage with a plain barn on it can sell strong, because the land is the hard part to find.

When the land is really the main thing you own, the method shifts, and I cover that on selling land.

Most of Overton County is homes on their own land. A shop or a barn is normal, and there are sales with one to compare against.

Cross into Cookeville and Putnam County and you find more subdivisions along with 1 to 3 acre lots. A large shop is less common there, and some subdivisions will not allow one at all. Fewer comparable sales means a wider range of reasonable answers, and a harder time supporting what the building adds.

This is also where online estimates fall down. An algorithm can see bedrooms and square feet. It cannot see whether the 40 by 60 out back has power, concrete and a 14 foot door. I look at that in person for Livingston home values and everywhere else I price.

Three things, and none of them cost money.

• A list of every building, with its size, what it sits on, and whether it has power, water and concrete.
• Permits, receipts and dates for anything you built or improved, plus a note on what stays with the property and what goes with you.
• A clear path to every building, left open, including the back of the place.

Then let the number come from the sales. When I'm your listing agent, the price I give you is a pricing opinion built with appraisal methods. It is not a formal appraisal, and those are two different assignments. I will tell you which one your situation calls for.

My full pricing and marketing method is on how I sell a home, and buyers can read how I help buyers. If your questions turn to taxes, zoning or what a lender will count, those belong with your CPA, your attorney or your lender, and the contract sets the terms of any sale.

Want to know what your shop, your barn and your land are really adding? Send me a message or call (931) 510-1346. I answer every question.