Correct way to verify square footage?

Question

I'm making an offer & trying to verify what's in the MLS. The house has a detached garage, so that makes it easy to exclude garage. When I measured the individual rooms in the house and added together, it came up short of what the MLS listed as square footage for the Living area. Am I supposed to be measuring outside the perimeter of the house instead, or is the MLS/appraiser site wrong? Thanks.

Jon Holdman · Answer

It usually measured on the outside, not inside.  If its rectangular with no garage, measure the outside width and depth and multiple to get square footage.  If there's a garage, measure that, too, and subtract it off.  If the shape is more complex, you'll have to measure each piece of wall, break it into rectangles, compute the size of each one and add or subtract as appropriate.

Scott Hubbard · Answer

Measure outside perimeter and subtract any non-livable areas like garages or storage not accessible from the interior.  When you walk through the house make sure each room has access to heating and cooling and bedrooms should have windows.

Bienes Raices · Answer

^ I measured the exterior, it's about 170 feet less than advertised. I dropped my offer amount by 6K. We'll see what happens.

Bill Gulley · Answer

Hi, how off is it?

The tax man will take the exterior foot print of the house, yhis is what is usually found at the courthouse. Many Realtors will use this to list a property in the MLS. They also measure inside room sizes, since the rooms are listed it may say Living Room, 16X24, Bed 1 16X20, and so on. If you add up the interior room sizes it may not match the records used to list the property. Your insurance agent will use the tax records as the outer footprint, sometimes including the overhang as this shows the largest sq. ft. to be computed to be rebuilt from a loss and justifies a higher premium.

You'll find differences as pointed out above from living space and the under roof space that may include the garages, utility areas, storage areas, porches and breezeways.

The thickness of the walls will have an effect on these measurements too. A 6 inch exterior wall running 40 ft. will contain 20 sg ft. actually a little more with siding, sheeting and sheetrock.

A buyer is usually more concerned with actual room sizes (for furniture) and living space, this is the useable sq. ft. assumed.

Commercial will use the exterior demension and if interior space is measured, say to rent an office, many go to the center of a common hallway and the center of the walls, so that the landlord does not lose rents from the interior wall space in the building.

Another aspect of measuring mistakes is that the tax man and utility companies as well as surveyors might be using an Engineer's Tape, marked to tenths of a foot not inches. These measurements can easily be picked up by a Realtor as inches instead of tenths of a foot, 22.7 would be 22 feet 9 and a quarter inches, not seven inches. Might bot sound like much but a building 60 feet long and 40 feet wide has 200 running feet and will make a difference depending on wall thickness.

I always used interior room measurements as my living space and the foot print under roof on the construction analysis. Good luck and measure twice, cut once.

A good appraiser will measure both, inside demensions for each room which will be required to be listed and the exterior footprint.

Bienes Raices · Answer

^ thanks Jon

Correct way to verify square footage?

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