Home appraisal with chickens

[celtic47]

I live in an old (1790) connected farmhouse in New England. I'm in the process of getting ready to refinance my house. When I say it's a connected farmhouse, this also means that the old barn is connected to my house. I keep my five chickens in a coop in the barn. Obviously, I will make sure the coop and barn are cleaned before any appraiser comes. But would having chickens in the old barn (originally built to house livestock) or even just having them on the property affect the appraisal?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don't know. Having pets like a dog living in your house might, that is a common question when you list your house for sale so a legitimate question. As long as it does not impact the living conditions inside the living area I wouldn't think it would be a problem, but I'm not a New Hampshire appraiser. If it did have a negative impact what would you do? Get rid of them?

If you are working with someone to help you refinance, like a bank, you might ask them that question if it would actually help you make a decision.

 

[neo71665]

Is it an actual barn connected to the house or a carriage house you are using as a barn?

 

[avjudge]

Attached full-on barns are a thing in northern New England. Here’s an online picture:

In this case, house and barn are side-by-side parallel to the road. Most of the ones I’m actually familiar with have the barn behind the house, so the drive goes up alongside the house right to the big door of the barn which is offset a bit.

 

[Ilovemychicks08]

We had an appraisal done on our house about 2 or 3 years ago right after i got the chickens. Our selling price actually went up.
Edit:2 years prior we built a new addition and had our house apraised. Our house has went up about $50,000 between both appraisals.

 

[3KillerBs]

I can't answer your question, but I love that style of connected house, sheds, and barn so much that I wrote them into a fantasy novel as the region's normal architecture.

 

[SourRoses]

My only concern would be changes in building code since the place was built.
Legally grandfathered in does not mean an appraiser won't ding you for the trouble it presents for potential renovations.

Over here, if permits are pulled to work in an area of the home, everything going on in that area has to be brought up to modern code. That's why you see home reno shows fussing over knob & tube and stair treads, it's not a choice once they're working on it.
Here, attached barns have to have a certain number of feet of open-air space (a roofed alley) between the dwelling space and barn (mitigating the risks from fire).
The barn also has to be a certain number of feet from food prep - the kitchen.

When I was a teen we rented a house-barn for our horses during show season. We found out it was not up to code because although it had the open alley, it opened right into the kitchen, failing the distance minimum. Updating that house to modern code would have required moving the kitchen, which is why the kitchen hadn't been renovated since the law changed, as pulling a permit would have forced the move.

Of course, this is a different country. I would just look at what's on the books about it, so you are prepared.
Even if it's a ding, it may make no difference whether animals are presently in it or not. So there may be nothing you can do to avoid it.

I'd also be really aware of the appraiser being a potential reporter of any active code violations you are not protected from by grandfathering... ie number of chickens, etc. It's easier to hide some birds at a friends than to deal with that rot.

*ETA: Oops! I missed the "New" in front of England