FTHB Dilemma w/ a Sunroom
Hey BP Family,
Working with my Realtor right now to win my first bid (after 7 failed attempts) on a first time home. This property is in a great area for me in North Arlington (great schools, stones throw away from a huge community park, and close to I30), and the plan is to live in it for a year or so before renting it out (I’m sure I’ll be picking your brains when the time comes!).
We're working on what price to go in at, and I want to make a realllyyyy strong offer (the house has a lot of that romance factor), but there's a dilemma. The house is a 3b/2ba 1,895 sq ft home but an additional sunroom built in which brings sq ft up to 2,055 (based off tax records my agent found). The strange thing though, is that the MLS shows the home to be 1,895 sq ft even though the sunroom is heated and cooled, and attached to the house securely, with windows (this sunroom is an amazing add-on and in great alignment with the rest of the home compared to other sunroom mods I've seen). I asked my agent why the Sellers would downplay the property as only 1,895 sq ft and she said it looks like the current owners bought the house with the sunroom install, but could've later added the heating/cooling systems BUT, didn't go to the county to get it permitted/assessed to be added as true sq footage.
Essentially what I took away from her explanation was, a lot of owners don’t want to fool with the county on things like this if they don’t have to, which I can understand. But here I am, trying to put a really strong offer in on a home and I’m not sure if I should go in with the mindset that it’s a 3b/2ba 1,895 sq ft or a 4b/2ba 2,055 sq ft…
Seeing as I’m going to rent this one day, if I myself decide to get it assessed/permitted as square footage (which I don’t know how much of a pain it truly is), I ran some rent estimators online (RentCast.io) and the rental comp differences between those two scenarios is about $2,275/monthly vs. $2,600/monthly, which is huge!
Bottom line… I’d be willing to come in a few thousand dollars more on my offer if it means there’s future potential to earn that much extra in rent each month, and I’m not sure what to do. I have until Sunday 6pm to figure this out so any wisdom would be greatly appreciated!