"rules" on calculating square footage??

Sounds like nonsense. Go to acris and look up the condo declaration. It can be a lot of pages to fish through (between 40 to 110 pages) but one page will list all the units and their square footage.
The sponsor broker's answer is unnacceptable nonetheless.
Ultimately though, you fight fire with fire.....comps.

The declaration will also tell you what's being measured. It can be from outer side of all boundary walls, halfway through, or to inner side. Nowadays it's usually outer side of outside walls and halfway through the walls between units and between the unit and hallways, etc. Lots of variations, though.

The 700 may have been an original, more conservative, method, and they're now selling it as per an outer-edge method to make it more apples-to-apples with newer condos.

the way sguare footage is presented is a joke. yes, its "legal" , but you cant live in the exterior of your walls...go to the place and bring a tape measure and measure it yourself. then you know exactly what you are dealing with.

1. Measure from exterior brick tip to exterior brick tip, including the interior public hallways, stairwells, and elevators.

2. Add a zero.

Seems to me that a reputable professional association would standardize reporting rules - with an emphasis upon conservative standards.

The New York real estate industry sets itself up for well earned criticism by not doing this.

Condominium sq. footage is in the offering plan, period. Listing numbers are just estimates, and if you want an exact figure you'll have to go to that document. Your atty. can obtain a copy from the management company -- there is usually a charge varying from $25 to a couple hundred bucks.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

Go to acris. If it's a 100 page declaration, check around page #43.
It's FREE.

The fallacy lies in the question itself:

calculating? Calculating? CALCULATING?

Do you actually think Brokers CALCULATE the square footage they list? If they did, they wouldn't be able to put the numbers they do. They divine it be "feel". Let's say you have a 2 BR listing. Well, everyone knows 2 br's are 1200 sf. So if the LR is a little bigger, or you can somehow justify that it "feels" bigger than your average 2 br, it's 1400 sf. If you have a Classic 6, it's 1800 sf; if you can justify that it "feels" a little bigger, it's 2000 sf or 2200 sf.

This of course is for a Coop. most brokers have realized at this point they really have to list the condo sf as whatever is in the Offering Plan because if they don't, things will likely blow up when the Buyer's atty reads it and tells them what is listed. However, in general, you should realize that the small the building is, the more overstated the Sf will be WRT the actual usable interior SF of the unit. The reason for this is that there is a higher ratio of common space SF to interior unit SF in smaller buildings, and that common space SF gets folded into the each unit's listed SF.

Personally, unless it's a Condo and the SF is listed in the Offering Plan, I have REFUSED to list SF on my listings. This tends to piss of some people, and a lot of brokers, but I refuse to "play that game". I used to list the actual SF, but then you lose because buyers don't want to see your listings because they are "too small" since EVERYONE overstates SF. So if I've got a large 1 BR and list it as 850SF, people don't want to look at it because they've seen 850 sf 1 BR's, and they are too small for them (of course the reason they are too small is because they are actually 650 sf 1 BR's).

I learned this lesson the hard way VERY early on in my sales career: I was working as a sales person at Belmarc and had been showing this woman apartments and knew i had the perfect unit for her. I called and told her I had the absolute perfect unit and she should see it ASAP. She asked how big it was and I honestly answered "600SF'. She said she didn't want to see it because it was too small. I told her that i know what she liked and this was the apartment for her. She said it's still to small and wouldn't look at it. The next time I called her to pitch her a unit, she said she found something. When I asked her what, it was the unit I had told her was perfect for her. I was sort of incredulous because not only had I been working my tail off finding units for her, and she had told me I was the only broker who listened to her and was showing her the "best stuff" she was seeing, but I had specifically pitched her this unit, told her it was "the one", and she had refused to see it. I asked her why he saw it with someone else than me since I was the one who pitched it to her first. Her answer was that they told her it was 800SF.

So, this is one of those items I blame buyers for: almost all listings have floorplans online and you can see them for yourself. But instead of looking for yourself, you believe what some broker lists as the square footage and then cry about the results. You want to know how to judge the size of apartments vs one another? All you need is to make sure that they are measured the same way. It doesn't really matter so much what that way is, as long as it is consistent. What's the sure way to do this? Stop being lazy and come up with a way you measure units and use that methodology YOURSELF and then you will know that they are all being calculated the same way. Recently someone stated a discussion wondering why units at 140 West 16th St were "so cheap" in terms of $/SF. I pointed out they needed to look at the actual SF and not the stated SF. Everyone who actually bothered to look at the floorplan and calculated the size came up with pretty much the same numbers. So it goes to show you it's not that hard to see what real SF is, but brokers rely on buyers being too lazy to do it.

So if you are going to be making the largest purchase in your life by probably a factor of somewhere between 10x and 100x, take a little f'ing responsibility and caveat emptor rather than whining about it.

PS Using ACRIS, rather than going thru the pages one by one, go to the last radio button on the right and save the entire document as a PDF file. When you open the PDF file it will be fairly easy to find the pages with Exhibit B (listing SF) because they stick out like a sore thumb.

Sounds like a neat trick. (save as pdf).
Im so used to rummaging through though, I just keep clicking "next page" (about a second each click) 'til the page just hits you in the face. Takes less than 2 minutes.
And yes what's 2 minutes of your time when making a purchase like this.

And to go a bit further, this particular case...what are we talking about here...a 6/7% difference?
Offer 8% less....jeeze.

To paraphrase Fran Lebowitz, it's "Oh Say 3000ish square feet or so".

"ish" from the latin root "or less."

"it's a good size, you won't want anything bigger...or smaller; it's purfect for you"

30yrs, as a long time industry pro, what do you think if brokers that listed the sq ft were required to state whether it was gross sq ft or usable sq ft? Would that help or make no difference (since many people don't pay attention to details)? I would think it would at least help somewhat.

I am one of those detail people- and I would prefer knowing Gross vs Usable. Perhaps I am in the minority.

I think some buyers place entirely too much emphasis on sq. footage. In this case it's the negotiating theme, but honestly, the number means nothing.

Point one: 850 well laid out square feet beats 1,000 badly laid out square feet. 1,400 well laid out square feet beats out 1,650 badly laid out square feet.

Point two: what's "usable"? Say someone quotes you a "between the walls" usable figure that contains a six by eight alcove. Well, a six by eight alcove is worthless to most people since it can't fit a dining table, but if we went to a "usable" square footage standard, it would "count" just as much as a 12 by 20 foot living room.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

you don't need to tell people usable square footage, because a look at the floor plan (hopefully) can convey that info to an astute buyer. I have read on some posts not to count the closets and hallways as square footage. The dolt that put that out proved their limits with that one. You pay for square footage, whether it is a closet, hallway or whatever, and if you like the plan and the architect did not screw up then there is a reason for the hallway, etc. You can have 1000 square feet as a square(31 ft by 31 ft) or as a rectangle (1 ft by 1000 ft). It still is the same square footage, but most people would realize that one is better than the other.

Interior walls are also, rightfully, counted in the square footage calculations. It's when the developers measure to the outside of the EXTERIOR walls that square footage claims become very ridiculous.

Funny. I was walking home this evening and there was a guy on his cell phone talking to someone saying that he wasted his time going to visit an apartment because, he said, "they measured the square footage from the outside of the limestone. Can you believe that? That is the most expensive limestone ever quarried."

What he doesn't realize is that they actually measured fro the corner of 63rd and park.

semerun, did you actually read my post?

alan:

A billion here... a billion there..... pretty soon you're talking about real money!

front_porch
Though you validly point out what makes people pay more per square foot or less per square foot, the number does mean something to buyers,and to sellers(if not, why do they always exagerate up and not down),to banks,to insurance companies,to contractors, etc.

I think that brokers should not be allowed to represent the sq ft for coops, so an honest broker like 30yrs would not be penalized. They could just use a floorplan with room dimensions. For condos they should quote what is in the Offering Plan.
However many buyers want to know the "sq ft", it seems they they believe any number that the brokers will tell them. Last Sunday I went to an open house in the UWS and there was a woman complaining with the broker since he had not listed the sq ft, he told her that the apartment was probably 1200 sq ft and she was happy..

Purposeful miscalculation of square footage is FRAUD, but the RE industry has enough pull to permit this sort of deception.

giving the square footage listed in the offering plan of the condo is also misleading without looking at the offering plan itself. In the condo documents it is stated how the square footage is calculated, meaning if it includes a portion of the common areas or is just the apt measurements, so many times buyers look at the number and are astounded by what seems to be an inflated number(which it is) but it is what is stated in the offering plan. Again misleading if you don't have all the info.

size matters.

Here's a perfect example of a corcoran broker gone full retard.

As this listing was listed as "broker/owner," I assume he is the owner.
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/496111-condo-136-west-17th-street-chelsea-new-york
See his asking price is full of "2 bedroom, 2 and a half bath," and not enough of the "1318 sq ft issue." Yes it has outdoor space but it is sandwiched between taller buildings.
The condo dec tells us it's actually 1100 sq ft interior and 300 sq ft exterior and paid $1.5 in 2006!
But 2 bed and 2 and a half baths makes this a $2.7 apartment!?

And then you go to his other listings and it is clear that square footage doesn't matter....to him.
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/profile/818537-timothy-melzer

But yes of course, footage smootage.

truthskr10,

But did you read that the apartment is "great for investors!"?

I guess nowadays paying $2.5M or even $3.5M for an apartment that sold for $1.5M (at near the top of the bubble) is "great for investors"....

Are the dimensions on floor plans similarly unreliable? I'd like to compare two apartments in the same building (same line) but the dimensions on the floor plans are different (even though the overall shape is virtually the same). I can't tell if different dimensions on the floor plans mean the apartments are actually different sizes or the dimensions were just measured differently. Do the dimensions of a room on a floor plan typically include the closets in the room?

truthskr, actually the apartment we bought last summer was measured by the appraiser to be a larger sq. footage than I would have estimated as a broker, and then I'd list (if I list anything) if we sold it.

weird but true.

ali

FP, out of curiousity, how much larger?

You mean an appraiser fit a square peg in a round hole...that never happens... ;)

i had my old apartment appraised twice, once when buying and once when selling. when i was buying, the measurement was 930. when i was selling, it was 975. i promise that i did not "stretch" the apartment ;). when i measured it myself, numerous times, i always came up with 941.

the appraisers who come in with the lazer measures are the worst. those things bounce off the furniture, shiny paint, etc and give you some really bad numbers.

F this crap. Where is the "professionals" in all this argument. Where is the AIA, what the f' is wrong with the architects that they can't come up w/ a standard measurement? I just want 3 measurements.
1) sf. ft. of inner boundary of my "buildable" space;
2) "buildable" sq. ft. minus any structural obstructions that cannot be moved;
3) would be #2 x height=> giving total volume.... bring some goooooooooodammmmmmmmmm order to this world?

Does the iphone have 20 different sized USB ports? When I buy a 12oz can of coke... it's the fking same size all over America, how wonderful!

One of the reasons appraisers overstate SF is that it allows them to use comps that sell for more money and therefore makes their jobs much easier in finding comps. So, their bread is buttered to overstate SF.

Nada, about 50 SF which in our case is 5%. Appraisal came in around 1050, to my brokers eye (which is full of FILL IN EXPLETIVE HERE) it's a thousand.

ali

Front Porch - don't want to be a stickler, but an error of 50 sf on 1000 is really only .5% not 5%. Not quite as egregious an error.

I want to be a stickler. An error of 50 sf on 1000 is 5%.

FGC - my bad - don't know what I was thinking

"Does the iphone have 20 different sized USB ports? When I buy a 12oz can of coke... it's the fking same size all over America, how wonderful! "

I think the apartment measurement is more like the weight of the hamburgers you get at McD's or restaurants..sure that patty was a quarter lb before they cooked it..just like the apartment square footage was 1000sf before you bought it..hmm