One of the biggest questions we get here at Around the House is about the project you might be working on and if it brings extra value to your home. Today we sit down with John Copulos from the MASSIVE Facebook group "Ask the Appraiser" and his firm Copulos & Associates Real Estate appraisal company. We explore where the value is and what trends he is seeing with your home and others today. For more information check him out at http://www.copulos.com/

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[00:00:16] Eric Goranson: He is an appraiser and has one of the best Facebook groups out there in his ask the appraiser. Welcome to around the house, my friend.

[00:00:34] Eric Goranson: Thanks brother.

[00:00:54] John Copulos: No doubt about it. And I'm excited to be here and I think, we'll be giving people a big value add as to what they can [00:01:00] do to their house and things that they can do to make their home more valuable to them.

[00:01:09] John Copulos: Oh man, it's a long story. I've been in the business for about 37 or 38 years. I just fell into it. I was going to college. And trying to make some money while I was off on breaks and things like that. And I was working for a temporary agency. I was all over the place. They had me at the airport. They had me at the hardware store.

[00:01:47] John Copulos: I wanted to work for myself and be flexible with the hours. So I said, you know what? This is a perfect fit for me. They offered me a job right out of college. And this is the only thing I've ever known. So if I ever lose it. My ability to do this. I don't [00:02:00] know what the heck I'm going to do.

[00:02:02] Eric Goranson: And you just are living and breathing it. And there's nothing better

[00:02:19] John Copulos: And then about 10 years in, I went on my own and, I've been doing it for what? 25 years on my own. I've got guys all over. Lower Hudson Valley, so I've got a number of guys working for me. I also have a satellite office in Florida, so I guess I should say I'm in New York state in case you didn't recognize that from the accent.

[00:02:44] Eric Goranson: And that is great. I wanted to bring up we're going to do a bunch of different dives into a bunch of different, facets of this subject. But 1 of the things that I see in my area, which is 1 of the big holes in the home buying process.

[00:03:24] Eric Goranson: And the contractor pulls the building permits, they show up and the building department goes, hey, this upper floor in your basement were never permitted. You actually have a 1000 square foot house and now we have to bring this upstairs room into 2024 code and it seems like these people just fall through the cracks.

[00:04:03] John Copulos: Plumbing's not up to code. These type of things really do come into play. And I guess the best thing that a buyer or a home buyer needs to make sure that is their agent does the do, does their due diligence and the home buyer does the due diligence on making sure everything is legal in the house.

[00:04:21] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And what I tell people, at least in my audience and their role in their eyes, cause they've heard me wave this flag a bunch right now, and that's okay. But. I tell them first thing they should do if they're putting an offer on the house, look at what the listing says, how many square feet it has, and then call your local building department and verify that's what it is.

[00:04:54] Eric Goranson: And then you'll have an idea of how many non permitted additions were done over the years.[00:05:00]

[00:05:08] Eric Goranson: Thanks, man. Thanks. It's just one of those rabbit holes and I've seen people go out and I've ran into this personally working with design clients over the years.

[00:05:33] Eric Goranson: Oh, there's some ugly things that happen out there that, of course, this isn't appraiser's job, but it's part of the whole real estate transaction. Right?

[00:05:48] John Copulos: So that would. That doesn't fall under our kind of jurisdiction and too much of what we're concerned about, but we're talking about scenarios for homebuyers here. And that scenario you just painted. Can you imagine somebody putting [00:06:00] aside 50, 000 to fix their bathroom and then they realize, oh boy, we need to come up with another 120 to fix everything that's been done in this house.

[00:06:09] Eric Goranson: the homeowner and the bank or what, whoever gave the loan on that has to turn around and say, wow, we just gave you a loan for 2400 square feet, but sorry, about a thousand.

[00:06:31] John Copulos: 1200 of it is in the basement. And when we're finished appraising it at 1200 square feet, they're like, holy smokes. I thought my house had three bedrooms three bedrooms and three baths. You're telling me it's got only got two bedrooms and two baths now. So this comes into play. It's a gray area. The agents are coming, putting their hands around it, realizing how to talk to borrowers, but we got to explain it to the real estate professionals out there.

[00:07:06] Eric Goranson: Correct. Correct. So what are the, some of the hottest subjects that you see out there right now in the appraisal side of things?

[00:07:16] Eric Goranson: We've got homebuyers. We have professionals. We got a whole mix in our grand audience out there. 60 percent are

[00:07:27] John Copulos: Because that's what I do. I talk to agents every day. On my Facebook group. So I think

[00:07:38] John Copulos: fun. Gotcha. What's, what is the biggest bang for your buck these days that, Hey John, I want to do, I want to do something to my house.

[00:08:06] John Copulos: Spent a half an hour on the call with them talking about different things that they have to consider. Do you have any children? Are you going to be having children in the next three or four years? I suggested they go up, put up a second floor. I suggest that they added garage space, so I suggested all these different things and the conversation just keeps on going, and she says so we've got 2 bedrooms now, obviously, we've got 2 bedrooms now, shouldn't we keep the 2 bedrooms down there and put maybe 2 bedrooms upstairs?

[00:08:47] John Copulos: We're going to, we're going to put a second floor on your house. You're going to go three or four bedrooms. You're going to have a Jack and Jill. You're going to make sure your bathroom is your primary bath is large and Extravagant and nice and all the [00:09:00] different things. Steam showers, towel racks, all the good things that go on.

[00:09:19] John Copulos: Let me talk to an appraiser who's seen thousands of homes and knows what the market is looking for, what the typical buyer and home buyer is looking for. So they called, we had a nice call and. I'd love to get your feedback on where in the bathroom, what's important in a bathroom, something that comes up on my Facebook group called ask the appraiser is a bathtub important?

[00:09:59] John Copulos: And [00:10:00] I'm not trying to sound sexist at all, but you're either going to have a wife who loves baths or you're going to have kids who need baths. So if your wife or your partner is not a bath lover, why do you need it in the bathroom?

[00:10:20] Eric Goranson: Which is bathtubs are now coming back into style for 2024. As we've spent 15 years taking them out. What happened? The pendulum swings the other way, and now we're going to spend another 15 putting them back in, but I totally agree with you. I think if you've got one bathtub in the house.

[00:10:55] John Copulos: You're going to, lose that person who loves the bath, but you're going to, you're going to gain so many other buyers that love the [00:11:00] shower.

[00:11:21] Eric Goranson: That'll be his own bathtub room that will work great. And it'll pop right off for that. And you won't know any different and they'll have both. But That was the sacrifice to get the steam shower in so we could really have someplace enjoyable. Instead of having kind of what would have been a very small 1970s bathtub.

[00:11:37] John Copulos: solution. That's what I have. That's what I'm sitting in now. My, and I'm thinking about, I've made calls to remodelers. I want them to come in, take my bathtub out. Give me a little extra room because it's a narrow bathtub and it's an hour shower in there. Give me a little extra room.

[00:12:10] Eric Goranson: Oh, yeah, I put in one of the thermosol systems, so I've got the touch screen so I can watch Netflix while I'm taking a steam shower or anything else in there, catch up on the news or whatever,

[00:12:24] John Copulos: It's not enough. You have to have steam proof. And when they come to start talking to me about the steam, that's one of the questions I'm going to be asking, and it's all because of you.

[00:12:40] John Copulos: ball game.

[00:12:53] Eric Goranson: Yeah, it's funny. And it seems to me in the remodeling world where I come from, that is one of the, that is the largest failure [00:13:00] point in a kitchen and bathroom is that shower leaking and specifically a tile shower.

[00:13:19] Eric Goranson: And that's. That's scary when you're paying somebody five to 10, 000 bucks for a simple shower install.

[00:13:38] John Copulos: And one of the influencers said to me, you know what, John, I want you to lead with this question for yourself. It's called a lead magnet where you throw something out there to your public, to your listeners or your members and it draws them in. So this was it agents. I've got 10, 000 to [00:14:00] do some work in my home.

[00:14:26] John Copulos: 50, 000 back on their investment. Very difficult to do as far as I'm concerned. I wanted to see what your answer was. Cause I don't think I would be able to come up with an answer and I wanted to throw it into your lap.

[00:14:41] Eric Goranson: And energy efficiency, like insulation, really? So here's two things that I've noticed that people are getting the most back on their remodels from my perspective, at least is curb appeal. If you've got that 1990s home with with the beat up steel door that, that has got its few dents [00:15:00] from the ice and the things getting carried in and people moving appliances in and out or whatever, just the normal road, where the, you get on a front door, that's steel.

[00:15:24] Eric Goranson: That seems to get you some great value just in the curb appeal thing. And then insulation is an interesting one because there's a lot of rebates out there from your energy providers, right? So maybe you're going to spend a few thousand bucks on insulation, but you might get 50 percent of that back, 75 percent of that back in a rebate.

[00:15:51] John Copulos: you're very quick. You're very good on your feet. That's fantastic. I definitely agree about the curb appeal, but I never thought about the energy efficiency.

[00:16:12] Eric Goranson: They could be in there for six months. They'll notice a difference.

[00:16:23] John Copulos: No doubt about it. No doubt about it. So that's my take. It's a damn good take the kitchen. What obviously that's where.

[00:16:53] John Copulos: Is that correct? Yeah.

[00:17:15] Eric Goranson: I replaced those stair treads twice now. And finally about a month and a half ago, they went in the dumpster and I put real hardwood in because it's just not holding up as to what they said it would. And they're coming apart, even if they were installed correctly, they're scratching up.

[00:18:00] John Copulos: No doubt about it. No doubt about it. The granite counters you move into a place. It's got granite counters. Granite counters are nice, but you really don't like the coloring of it. This and that. Are there good options out there to paint the countertops?

[00:18:23] Eric Goranson: And you're really, you might get a little bit out of it, but in the end, you're still going to bust it up and haul it off and put something else in there.

[00:18:37] John Copulos: Yeah,

[00:18:54] Eric Goranson: I hire a furniture repair person to come out. Okay. The ones that come onto your dining room table that [00:19:00] save it to put where you put the scratch or you burnt a hole in it from a hot pan or something that you set on the table, have them come out and spend a day. And maybe they'll charge you a thousand bucks, they'll charge you 1, 200 bucks, whatever that is, it's going to look like a million bucks.

[00:19:33] John Copulos: Gotcha. Nice. Very nice. And it's a

[00:19:36] John Copulos: buck. No doubt about it. Good stuff.

[00:19:56] Eric Goranson: So they've already passed the ban. That's coming. What's that all about, E?[00:20:00] That's all about what we're seeing is that there's a lot of fabricators out there that are not following the best safety practices for that stuff. And so they're just dry grinding it and it has the highest silica dust content of all the countertops out there.

[00:20:31] Eric Goranson: And in Australia, they were getting silicosis, which can be fatal. It's the new asbestos scare, shall we say, of people getting lung diseases out of that. Once it's installed as an issue, no, is it an issue for a fabricator? That's grabbing the grinder and deciding to make a cloud of dust.

[00:21:01] John Copulos: can get up the mountain, right?

[00:21:05] Eric Goranson: So that's an interesting one. But am I putting what I put courts in my counter in the countertop in my kitchen? Absolutely. I wouldn't have, I wouldn't, think twice about it, but you're

[00:21:19] John Copulos: Yep. I got you. Yep. Same

[00:21:33] Eric Goranson: You'll see the cloud of dust. Same thing. Oh, good. Okay. Very good. But yeah, it's an interesting one, but really when it comes down to it, I think kitchens are a big thing. But again, and there's probably better than I. I think there's some context that has to go with it too. If you're in a neighborhood where you've got an average suburbia home.

[00:22:11] Eric Goranson: You thought you might sell it quicker, but I'm not sure if you're going to get a big jump in value out of that money. You might be better spending it someplace else.

[00:22:29] John Copulos: What is the market demanding? What does the typical home buyer in that area want in their house? Do they want the basement finished? Do they want the gym in the basement? Do they want an office an office space that might be more important? To the buyer in that neighborhood. As opposed to having the brand new kitchen.

[00:22:53] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And the question though, as is will they pay another 60 to a hundred thousand dollars for it?

[00:23:07] John Copulos: I'm not going to tell you that it's appreciating it any kind of crazy levels, but it's certainly not. Certainly not hurting right now. The turnkey home is what our buyers are looking for. A lot, most buyers are not looking to go into a home and have to spend 60, 70, 000 to revamp it or more obviously, but so that's what I'm saying, turnkey does go quicker and it's more it's, the appeal is there for it, but do you, are you going to get the bang for the buck?

[00:23:36] Eric Goranson: Yeah, absolutely. One question for you. I know this is a hot topic and it can be regional as well depending on what's going on But what is your opinion on converted garages?

[00:24:10] John Copulos: You don't see anybody have their car in the garage. It's all storage because that's like their basement. If you're going to convert a garage in Florida, it all depends on what the market wants from the area and needs. I love. I love a garage conversion or a garage that's turned into a she shed or a man cave.

[00:24:47] Eric Goranson: absolutely. And of course, there's some great garage conversions out there and there's some that you can go.

[00:24:58] John Copulos: No doubt about it. No doubt about it.[00:25:00] What's your read on the garage conversion.

[00:25:20] Eric Goranson: A big weird sunken living room or something that's off the kitchen that feels like a garage, but they still left the fire door in and, it just doesn't feel cohesive to the plan, in those situations, I'm almost like okay, that's like that. She shed thing where you've got it.

[00:25:50] Eric Goranson: But here are a lot of people like their garages. And again, it's a storage thing. You got to put it

[00:25:54] John Copulos: No doubt about it. And, and definitely so where we, how we look at those conversions [00:26:00] is that. Yeah. It's got to have the same feel and flow as the home has. So like you said if you feel as if you're walking into a converted garage, that's not a good thing.

[00:26:26] Eric Goranson: going to work.

[00:26:39] John Copulos: There's no doubt about it. I think it's a matter of taste, right?

[00:27:00] Eric Goranson: here.

[00:27:06] John Copulos: great store to go check things out in my opinion, and it's The choices are Amazing that's out there the choices the colors and paints it's fun to DIY your house, although I'm a guy who has two left hands, so I'm not a guy in your position like the way you can, but I can pay somebody to do what I like, what I'd like to do, and there's a lot to be done.

[00:27:45] Eric Goranson: Large format tiles, so style wise, I'm seeing these, as big as 4 foot by 8 foot, but 4 foot by 3 foot tiles now for living spaces. And those have been a really big new upcoming trend right [00:28:00] now. That's starting to go across the country and. Yeah, that floor and decor, they've got them in there on the shelf right now, and it's pretty cool.

[00:28:06] John Copulos: tell you, Eric, I don't think I'm familiar with 4x8. Wow. Yeah.

[00:28:28] Eric Goranson: There may be a 4 by 4 or 4 by 3 and putting those in. But the cool thing is you get. This really cool green pattern that you get to see all of it. Now, you need to have the right space for that because you're not going to want to put that in a little tiny hall bathroom because it doesn't make a lot of sense.

[00:28:56] John Copulos: wood or something else.

[00:29:00] Eric Goranson: It's, the materials are affordable because it's not much more than what a tile would be. You're just getting bigger pieces of it. Where it gets you is labor, because you've got to have, two or three tile setters out there to be able to do that.

[00:29:19] John Copulos: You know what I love? I love the new accents on walls. Yep. I think they're great. My only concern and I'll, I'll ask you is it a passing fad?

[00:29:36] Eric Goranson: Let's, as and you've been around this business longer than I have, but I think everything has its own fad to it. But then it always comes back again in a kind of a remade kind of way.

[00:30:04] Eric Goranson: That fit in the decades. And now you're getting it where. And a lot of that's because of how we saw things, if a designer designed out a custom home. And they built it that let's say that took a year for them to get through that process or even 16 months to get through that process where a photographer for a magazine would come out.

[00:30:42] Eric Goranson: And so now we're seeing a, when styles change, we're seeing it in target in 16 months. Wow. All right. So I think things are going to change a lot quicker. Just like how we've gone now from that the tones of gray and white to all the colors that are in and all the textures and all the wall things like you were talking [00:31:00] about from the wood to the wallpapers, to that kind of stuff.

[00:31:07] John Copulos: Yeah, no doubt. But that's something that I I'm looking to do in my home and I enjoy it and I like looking at it when I enter other people's homes and see what they've done. I got

[00:31:22] John Copulos: Great question. I'm a big proponent of it. COVID, I think did a one 80 on that for us people in case this, something like this ever happens again. People want to be able to get outside and hang out outside and enjoy themselves. So I see the pool has come back into play much more than it was.

[00:32:06] John Copulos: So that's my read on it. I'm a big proponent of it You know, there are appraisers out there that'll say yeah, i'm not so sure it adds to the value of the home I typically disagree with that. I look at it very closely and I do give value for a nice outdoor space. It makes a lot of sense to me.

[00:32:30] John Copulos: And it's, there's so many things that are available now to, so many things to, to enjoy it in the morning, in the nighttime, all the time. It's just, I agree with you. I agree with you. Patio space, decking, pool area.

[00:32:47] Eric Goranson: All the fun stuff. All

[00:32:53] Eric Goranson: So if you had any advice for homeowners before we end up going out here because we're going to run out of time here in a little bit but [00:33:00] what's your best advice that you can give for homeowners that are out there looking around because I know they're always many times at least scared of the appraisal process to go Oh!

[00:33:14] John Copulos: So I guess the biggest you know Listen, I could come here and I could talk to you about Give you what everybody the answer that everybody's going to give you I like to be a little bit different So sure i'm not bypassing the main answers Okay, but i'm just throwing in some different things and I alluded to it before I think that Storage space in a home is very important.

[00:33:56] John Copulos: If you don't have the type of storage or adding more closet [00:34:00] space, don't be afraid to put some closet space in a room and take away from the room. So much, but the storage and taking things taking mess out of people's vision, I think is really important. So that's something that I like to talk to people about, believe it or not for me.

[00:34:36] John Copulos: Those are a couple of things that, I would tell people.

[00:34:52] Eric Goranson: That's not a black and white answer probably either, but if you had to give up maybe a bedroom. For [00:35:00] storage, is it worth that or should you just is the bedroom count still very important in an appraisal?

[00:35:29] John Copulos: Like we averaged two, two kids a household or something like that. So something like that. Yeah. You need three bedrooms, four bedrooms is fine. Once you start getting it to five or six, there's no real difference that all the difference that an appraiser is going to see is going to be in the size.

[00:36:05] John Copulos: And what are you supposed to do? You need to figure something out and where are you going to take it? And that

[00:36:21] John Copulos: Yep. Yep. So I think closet space is really, you might think I'm a little nuts by bringing something like that up, but I think the closet space in helping home is really very overlooked. I should say.

[00:36:44] Eric Goranson: There's no, I didn't know where my clothes were going to go because I needed about 2 more of those just for my wife's clothes, let alone my stuff. It just wasn't going to work. At the same time, I took out the fireplace that was in there because I had a gas fireplace and I didn't need a big fireplace in my master.

[00:37:15] Eric Goranson: Cause man, you've got everything from YouTube to Facebook, to everything else going on.

[00:37:33] John Copulos: They come to us and they talk to us about the appraisal process. And I got to tell you. It's gone from zero to 45, 003 years. And within the past six months, it went from 10, 000 members to 45, 000 members. So we really hit on a topic that the agents and realtors want to talk about. They want to learn more about what's going on in my in appraisers heads.

[00:38:18] John Copulos: And what I love about the group is, and this is what I think is helping the group so much agents and appraisers don't have the best relationship. Okay. Appraisers think that the agents are lazy. They think that the the agents make too much and we're only making $500 on an appraisal. Why is this guy making $16,000 on his sale?

[00:38:51] John Copulos: You come on my group and you ask any question you want. There is no such thing as a silly question or a dumb [00:39:00] question. But the big thing is if anybody responds to that question, any appraiser on that group that is responds in an ego maniacal way or a bullying type of way, they are gone. And all of a sudden I've got, like I said, 75 appraisers on there that are compassionate, gentle, patient with the agent and they're knowledgeable and they're able to communicate.

[00:39:44] John Copulos: It can blow up their business and they're actually seeing it and the numbers are showing it. So thank you for asking. I'm really excited about it. If anybody wants to join, ask the appraiser, it's on Facebook. You go in, you type in, ask the [00:40:00] appraiser. There'll be other ones there, but you'll see me and you'll see 45, 000 agents.

[00:40:22] Eric Goranson: It's a great group. There's lots of great questions. I enjoy being part of it. And thank you for personally invited me earlier on the last time we talked because it has been a fun and kind group to to be a part of.

[00:40:39] John Copulos: I'm going to also ask you to do an interview with me. So I look forward to seeing you again, my friend you're a great person to know.

[00:40:52] John Copulos: You know what, they can find me there, but it's my website is copolis.

[00:41:13] Eric Goranson: All right. Thanks brother.

[00:41:19] John Copulos: great speaking with you