Me and my g/f find ourselves watching far too much HGTV on occasion and they make constant references to the square footage of the condo and/or house they are buying/selling/designing. Almost invariably I find myself completely baffled by the numbers they quote when I compare those units to mine. I live in a moderately sized downtown 1 bedroom apartment in Chicago which measures about 750 sq ft. when measuring the exterior walls. I’m certain my math is accurate for the record. Oftentimes I’ll see couples viewing 2 bedroom single family homes and the real estate agent will quote something like 550 sq ft. This just doesn’t jibe.
So, long story short, is there a specific way to calculate square footage in real estate that might exclude certain rooms or something? Perhaps the definitions change regionally or something. Anyone have an ideas why these numbers might vary so widely when the spaces shown are obviously much larger than what is quoted based on my straight forward understanding of square footage?
It will vary some by region but not by much. In most places what counts is specified by law. In general things like garages, unfinished basements, don’t count every thing else does. The only thing I can say is that it is tough to judge the size of rooms. People often put smaller beads remove things from rooms to make them seem larger when showing them.
Is it measured as everything (except excluded parts as mentioned) within the exterior walls, or is the interior of each room measured inside its own walls and then summed? This would make a difference – not almost one-third as in the example, but certainly some.
That’s the problem. 550 square feet seems small for a two-bedroom house, but 550 square meters seems too big (at least for one only containing two bedrooms).
From what I recall when buying a home, there was no standardized way, and either of those methods could be used (but not basements or garages as gazpacho mentioned). Even rooms added over garages might be excluded from the square footage, with something like “plus bonus room over garage” added.
Every description I recall, there was always some kind of disclaimer about the square footage, something like “more or less” added before or after the number.
Measuring residential square footage is not really difficult but you would be surprised by how many people manage to screw it up (or intentionally misrepresent it).
Most professions use the standards developed by ANSI (American National Standards Institute). I couldn’t find a link to the actual ANSI document but there are lots of articles explaining aspects of the method.
The problem is that there are several accepted methods for calculating SF, and good reasons for using one or the other. For example Fannie Mae guidlines instruct appraisers to, in effect, double count areas that are open through 2 levels (vaulted living room). This is due to the fact that appraisers cannot typically inspect the interior of the comparables to make a proper distinction.
So, always be careful when comparing the stated sq. ft. of several homes.
No show on HGN will quote space for a house, condo or apartment in the US in anything but square feet. Some of the shows about house hunting in foreign countries might quote square meters but I cannot recall an instance where the size was not also given in square feet.
Real estate practices may vary by state. In mine, we (Realtors) use the external measurements of habitable, finished space for the gross interior footage. Exclude (or list separately) unfinished, attic, below grade or separate structures. And below grade means any floor that is partly below grade due to hillsides, fill or slopes.
Also if there is a steeply slanted roof, we only measure the floor footage where a 5-ft person could stand up, so lofts measure much less than true floor space.
It could also be just plain errors on the shows part. There are so many of these shows because they are extremely cheap to make. I don’t think they spend much money making sure they have the facts correct.
I have a story that is vaguely related. My wife and I had a modest remodel done to a couple of rooms in our house. We hired a decorator to help us choose layout colors furniture suggestions and the like. The project turned out nice so the decorator wanted to have a small spread in the local style magazine. When the magazine came out the after shots were our house but the before shots and the picture of the couple were not us or our house. The point is real estate puff pieces are not held very high standards.
550 sq. feet sounds reasonable for a 2 bedroom house. Measured by the insides of the rooms, my 3 bedroom house has only 600 sq. feet, plus hallways and stairs. Of course, I’m in the U.K. and our houses have on average half the floor area of American ones.
The square footage of a house (in the U.S) is always calculated using outside measurements. While there may be local variations, the method described hereis basically how it done. You don’t subtract any space for hallways, interior walls (or exterior walls for that matter), etc. The only space you subtract is space that is cannot be lived in (unfinished basements, etc). The 600 sq. ft place described above is easily 800, maybe 900 sq ft.
I am a little less clear on how to measure an apartment, but the article suggests measuring on the inside and adding 6 inches for outside walls and 4 inches for inside walls.
A lot of older properties did have really small footprints compared to modern standards. I have seen 8x8 bedrooms, for example. (Though these lacked closets and should not technically have been called a bedroom because of that). Dining space wasn’t always a priority, and some living room were more a wide hallway than a proper room.
In Seattle, it was very common a few years ago to buy properties built prior to the 1950’s in the 600-800 sqft range and replace them with modern homes in the 2000-4000 sqft range. Standards have really changed over the years.
I agree that square footage is usually calculated with outside dimensions, less any unlivable spaces. Often that’s defined as any space that is not heated and finished. This definition can sometimes lead to an understated living space. My brother’s house has a finished (but unheated) carport and a separate finished (but unheated) storage room. Thus, they would list the property at 3 bedrooms and 900 sqft, but their effective space is closer to 1200 sqft.
And I’ll agree with the others that I wouldn’t take HGTV numbers as infallible. They’re selling entertainment, after all.
Checking my county MLS for-sale residences just now, I find only 11 properties with under 600 sq ft, and all are strictly summer cottages. This is in a county with a population of 27,000. So I’d say <600 sq ft is totally unreasonable for a year-round US residence.
We have a lot of residences with 600 sq ft garages.
There aren’t any standard reports/calculations that take into account high or cathedral type ceilings are there? If you have say a 20 x 20 room with 11 foot ceilings and a 20 x 20 room with 22 foot ceilings they still both recorded as 400 sq ft?
Houses are measured to outside walls of livable areas excluding areas such as unfinished basements and garages.
Condos however are measured centerline to centerline of the partitions that divide the units, and face of exterior wall to corridor face of corridor wall. When a developer develops a condo building they need to sell as much of the floor as they can. The saleable area vs the gross area is the efficiency of the floor plate. His pro forma and profit is contigent on these numbers. Since everyone uses the corridors/stairs/elevators those are common areas and thus can’t be sold to any individual buyer. However the area between the gyp board of your unit and the gyp board of the adjacent unit can be sold to you–at least to the centerline of the wall. This area is often called a limited public area, which means you own it, but you can’t do anything to it without approval of the homeowner association. That is so that someone doesn’t take the fire rated gyp board down on their side of the partition and put the adjacent unit in danger. Now you know more then you ever wanted to know about how condos are measured I have to do this all the time for my cilents and it is pretty consistent across all of them how they want us to measure the saleable units.
I have to do this all the time for my cilents and it is pretty consistent across all of them how they want us to measure the saleable units.