A feature article in this month’s Digital Home magazine leans on yours truly and my friend, fellow techie, and local appraiser, Peter Fulmer, on the widening gap between true costs of advanced residential technologies and their respective appraisal values.

Fulmer sums up the conundrum well, “I understand the costs associated with putting the technology into the house because I’m familiar with the technologies being used. But that’s not enough - you have to try to determine the actual value of the overall house to someone for whom these technological amenities may not mean much. This is an issue that’s going to become bigger and bigger as technology gets used more and more to differentiate homes.

I would submit that the non-technically-inclined buyer Peter refers to will end up reaping the rewards of this appraisal methodology.  In this scenario, he stands to first get a break on the up-front costs of the technology if it doesn’t receive a dollar-for-dollar valuation.  When that buyer later goes to resell the house, the technologies once considered “advanced” will, by then, be common…if not expected…and will thus place that house in better competition with newer homes, depending on the technologies in place. 

That alone will stand to draw draw additional value, though it’s difficult to say how much.  Future value potential doesn’t mean squat on an appraisal, which is a snapshot of the here-and-now.