condo square footage

There are probably at least a dozen threads on this discussion board about square footage calculations- so use the search discussion feature. Short answer- you either like the space for the price or you don't- because the #'s they provide you can be manipulated a number of ways.

The offering plan states how square footage is computed. In new condos (say starting mid-2000's), many places started including BS like a fraction of hallways, lobbies, common spaces, etc. That's what may be going on, and the offering plan would shed additional light on the issue.

agree with inonada. Ask the developer very simply, "are the common elements included in the interior unit stated sq footage?"..and try to get answer in email so you have it on record. It is what it is and the offering plan likely verifies this. If common elements are included, in larger units it could add up to 200sft+...

Even though its legal for the developer to do and the buyer atty should catch this prior to deal signing, to me its a shady practice that does more harm than good for the developer/project reputation. As far as Im concerned, in this market it is common to not add the common elements into the marketed interior size of the unit. To do so kind of makes the unit look pricey and the seller/developer is trying to make the #s look better by showing a lower ppsf

10% less than the actual SF is a low overestimate....the norm is 15-20%

"to me its a shady practice that does more harm than good for the developer/project reputation"

You could say that about fully half of what the real estate industry does. It is shameful.

This is a NYC-wide phenom in Coops, condos, and rentals. Only townhouses/single family escape it - sort of.

Being from California, I can safely say that if you transported any building in Manhattan to Westwood, downtown LA, or SoMa, every single apartment would magically be 10-20% larger.

Sorry, I meant 10-20% smaller.

...and any real estate broker would be 10-20% blonder...

but probably not a lot dumber.

New condos overestimate the sq footage the most. Almost every one includes exterior walls and pro-rates share of common spaces. You just have to measure yourself and decide whether you are willing to pay it. In the old condos, the stated sq footage was more real. For example, Zackendorf tower on Union sq. Beats me why so many people do not measure before making an offer.

Square footage is one of the most abused facets of Real Estate in Manhattan. At best it's been quoted wrong and at worst an outright distortion. A more scientific approach is to compare room dimensions across apartments. The public is addicted to square footage as an over simplified answer to the more complex question of value.

If you want to try to quantify the sense of space, then compare the cubic feet of the main rooms.

mneu, are you not going to count closet space? One apt has 3 foot wide hallway, the other 5 foot, will you ignore? Assuming you will calculate sq footage from dimensions of the rooms. In one apartment, you enter the living room directly, in the other, you have small lobby to take off the shoes, closet etc, will you ignore it. Either way are measureing sq footage. I do like the cubic footage concept. If people started to really pay for that in proportion to cubic foot, I will be very rich with 12+ foot ceilings.

300_mercer Certainly closet space should be counted, but as a separate item apartment from room dimensions. The point of my post was that since there is such a subjective variety of ways square footage is calculated it's best to break the problem down into smaller elements. Comparing two different square footage estimates leads to confusion. Comparing 20x12 to 18x11 leads to clarity. Closet space can be considered separately along with other aspects like the amount of sunlight, monthly costs etc.

Al_Assad: "...and any real estate broker would be 10-20% blonder..."

Uh... No. Both SF and LA are minority white. In SF they'd more like be of Chinese descent and LA Iranian.

"... and LA Iranian."

In which case, they're 20-30% more blond ;).