"How is it?" for description: informality or nonsense?

[Planta]

Hello English-Test fellows,
(you can go straight to the point in green, below)

I've come across a Brazilian book with the following dialogue:
"How is your house?"
"Oh, it's beautiful, big and painted yellow."
After other similar examples, the book teaches that asking "How is ----?" is a way to ask for the thing's "permanent" physical description.
=o6

My other good books state that "how" asks for instant/current and subjective descriptions of a thing/person, such as the current mood/health/state:
"How is your house?"
"Uhm... Still standing! - neither demolished, nor burnt, nor anything... Why? o_O "
They also state that "what +like" better asks for "permanent" and objective descriptions, such as the physical appearance:
"So, what's the house like?"
"Oh, it's beautiful, big and painted yellow."

Fair enough.

It's just that the same books teach, for example :
"It doesn't matter"
... but along comes Michael Jackson in his "Black or White" song saying :
"You're my baby / It don't matter if you're black or white".
Well, I won't spit on his tomb and throw my books on it, because I reckon there are informal and slangy contexts that books don't cover.

So, about using "How is the house?" to ask for its physical description: is it...

• ...as nonsensical as asking about dinner time with "Why is dinner?" instead of "What time is dinner?"?
  
• ...just a matter of formality x informality/slang?

What does your experience say?

Informal (but not nonsensical) cheers!
Planta

[Mister Micawber]

'How is the house?' does not seem to ask me for a physical description.
_________________
Native English teacher at Mister Micawber's

[Cerberus™]

Planta, your message is as well-structured and readable as ever, thank you for that. At first I skipped to the green section, but then I read the rest.

- "Don't" for "doesn't" is slang, it counts as "wrong".

- I agree with your second book and with Mr. Micawber: "how's Whiskers?" would be an informal way to ask for a subjective description of someone's cat; if you ask about someone's house this way, I'd take it as mildly ironic, because you'd appear to treat your house as a person, or at least as an active agent. I suppose this is because "how is X?" is short for "how is X doing?".