Appendix F

House Grading system

The following are the guidelines for visual assessment of the condition of houses.

Houses are assessed on a three-point range with 1 being worst and 3 being best. Style, size, spacing, value or personal preference should be avoided in judging the house. Little weight should be given to the yard or items exterior to the house, although a serious cluttering of the area may influence the other observations. Since this is an assessment of the overall condition of the house, and visible indicators infer some hidden conditions, numerous extraneous items may be used in the judgment process. For example, if there are miscellaneous items piled on the porch & visible through the windows, the other observations may be weighed a bit more heavily. Since this is only a three-point scale, it would be fairly infrequent that these extraneous factors would drop the score by a point.

The guidelines are as follows:

0 - Uninhabitable - Any house that appears to be uninhabitable, with broken windows and/or doors, roof collapse, fire damage, or plants overgrown to the extent that they hamper access to the house.

These houses were included in the #1 houses in this study for statistical purposes. There are very few #0 houses in the city, as city ordinances would generally require the homeowner to either tear down or repair the house.

1 - Requires major repair - There will be several obvious signs of areas needing repair. Indicators of the need for major repair would include any noticeable structural problems, such as sagging roof or major damage to walls. A house with a tarp covering the roof and peeling paint and broken stair railings would qualify a house as a #1. These houses will show obvious signs of neglect and are generally noticeably worse than other houses in most neighborhoods.

2 - Needs minor repairs - These problems are generally aesthetic in nature, such as peeling paint, and alone are not enough to threaten the livability of the house. Curling roof tiles, and single broken or cracked window, several torn screens would be type of items that might classify a house as a #2. The yard and other outside factors might be used to bump a marginal #3 down, but only if there are signs of some problems with the house and the yard is in very bad shape.

3 - House in good condition - There are no obvious signs of needed repairs and the house has an appearance of being well maintained. The paint and roof appear to be sound; there are no signs of rotten boards. The trim and window frames are painted, and the yard is in passable condition. Care should be taken to not be overly swayed by style, color, or other factors that do not relate to the condition of the house. If the house appears to be well maintained, a florescent pink house can be a #3 no matter how badly you dislike bright pink houses!