I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree, or so the Joyce Kilmer poem goes. Yet, when homebuyers have their homes inspected prior to the closing, they seldom have the trees inspected. Every other aspect of the home is inspected and re-inspected these days.
It is not uncommon to have the house placed under the microscope and tested for radon, lead-based paint, mold, asbestos, termites and moisture. Additionally, it has become the norm to have the various components inspected by licensed and bonded HVAC contractors, plumbers, electricians, roofers and structural engineers.
If any of these systems fails, the repairs could cost thousands of dollars. To buy a house and fail to have the proper inspections performed simply wouldn’t be prudent, as George Herbert Walker Bush would say.
Often the most valuable single asset of any home can be found growing in the yard – its trees. In most Nashville neighborhoods there are millions and millions of dollars in tree inventory. For example, the cost to replace an oak tree that has reached an age of 100 years could be as high as $30,000 to $50,000, according to Cabot Cameron, a certified arborist and the president and founder of the highly regarded Druid Tree Service.
Nashvillians buying homes seem to place a great deal of emphasis on the price per square foot of houses. Many will not purchase a property if the price per square foot exceeds a particular dollar amount. The fallacy in such thinking is that certain assets of the home often are not considered in the price per square foot.
For example, a 2,000-square-foot home with a full, partially finished basement is often only given credit for the square footage on the main floor, although the basement houses the washer and dryer and offers several hundred square feet of storage. The appraiser adjusts for the additional space, but the home shoppers say the area is not heated or cooled and should not be included in the square footage even though every square inch of the area is utilized.
Believe it or not, there exists a formula for evaluating a tree. The value of a tree is $42 to $48 per square inch of the trunk of the tree according to Cameron.
As is the case with all real estate, the three most important factors in determining the cost of a tree are, you guessed it, location, location, location. Cameron says a 100-year-old oak shading a swimming pool in Belle Meade could be worth more than $50,000, while the same tree shading a gas station full of junked cars would have a value of less than $30,000.
As most investors lost their proverbial shirts in the past several years, and net worths have dropped significantly, tree values have appreciated at a rate of 3 to 6 percent per annum. I would like to disclose that I am a broker of residential real estate, not a financial planner and would not recommend a mass exodus from the stock market in order to invest in arboreal securities.
Believe it or not, the method of determining the age of a tree is by counting the rings in the diameter, just like they taught us in kindergarten. The rings are formed each summer as the tree is forced to battle for nutrition and water. The rings of a tree can give insight as to the harshness of the weather in a particular year.
Therefore, those among you with large trees should have them inspected since a large percentage of your investment portfolio is shading your house or preparing to fall upon it.
- Cameron provides several questions to ask yourselves when inspecting trees:
- Do you notice any cracks in the trunk or major limbs?
- Is there any decayed wood or extensive dead wood in the canopy?
- Is there any fungus or mushroom growth?
- Have the trees had a history of topping or have their roots been damaged.
If the answer to any of these questions is yes, call an arborist. The head you save may be your own. Nothing hurts worse than having a 300-pound limb hit you in the head.
Richard Courtney is a real estate broker with French, Christianson, Patterson and Associates and can be reached at [email protected].