Accurate Estimate of Sqft Comps in Building

Use a house scanner to get the accurate size of the unit.

What's that? Please provide link...

Go to the building offering plan to see all the apartmrnts square footage. Call the building manager and ask to see the offering prospectus

It depends if the building is a co-op or a condo. If it's a condo, the square footage will indeed be in the offering plan, which your lawyer should be able to get from the managing agent. Be aware that the square footage will be overstated from interior square footage because 1) condos measure to the middle of the wall thickness and 2) condos attribute to every unit a share of the common areas of the building, such as hallways, stairs, etc.

If it's a co-op, it's a little trickier. Agents have been sued over stating co-op square footage, so often we don't. The easiest thing is to pull other floorplans through your broker or hire an appraiser for a few hundred dollars.

Property Shark will provide you with building dimensions, and that helps some too. If you know a building's footprint is 25 feet by 63 feet, you know you're not going to see 2000 square feet of apartments per floor.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

Thanks for the tip - I looked them up and they're not in over the weekend, but what about my question about where StreetEasy gets it's estimates of sqft.

Front porch -- you think that square footage is ever under-estimated -- say in a conversion from a rental where original owner wanted to keep property taxes as low as possible?

I don't know where Streeteasy gets its sq ft numbers, but I recently emailed Property Shark to find out where they get theirs. They told me they get their sq ft from DOB records--they didn't specify further. I later checked DOB for my building and couldn't find anything, so I don't know. Anyway, I asked them because Property Shark had understated the sq feet in a condo I was looking to buy by about 100+ sq ft. And it does skew the $ per sq ft on the closed sales, since it states a higher price per sq ft than it actually is. In my case, Property Shark had the apartment at 575 sq ft. We purchased it and then measured it and it came in at 680 sq ft, and that's not including the walls that most owners/developers will include to make it appear larger.

When an appraiser comes to the unit to do report for the bank, he/she measures each room separately.

Condos have number associated with each unit in its offering plan, that’s why brokers can quote it.
For co-ops, that don’t have such a number, brokers would either put approx. number or welcome you to measure it yourself.

On my previous deal discrepancy between number from an appraiser and listing broker was approx. 150 sq.ft
So if you interested in the unit – measure it yourself.

will,

It's tough for me to imagine that an owner would underestimate square footage -- which would be used to market the rentals and bring in money -- just to help cut property taxes and save on the expense side.

But I've only been at this for a couple of years. Let me ask some older brokers I know if it ever happens.

ali r.
{downtown broker}