Sale at 556 3rd Avenue #PHB

I don't understand the rules of sq ft in apartments. Someone tried to explain it to me once, and my eyes glazed over. It seems to me that buyers are going to do their own analysis, and that playing games in the listings just makes the seller look dishonest. Same situation as that townhouse at 37W94 between listings. It's just silly.

Years ago it was explained to me by an expert commercial real estate broker that square footage followed the rule of the "rubber ruler"; stretch it or shrink it as you wish. Same thing seems to apply to residential real estate.

For condos it is simply as per the offering plan which also specifies the measurement methodology. In this case, the broker better have good reasons as the buyer will look at the offering plan eventually. For townhouses, it is above grade building footprint times number of floors - walls included.

300 you managed to find one that actually did change in size.
However though It did actually shrink from original construction, it seems to be nearly the same from last sale.
Unfortunately the incorrect footage posted from the last sale gave license to embellish too far.

There are several amended condo declarations, one of which (July 2007)shows PHA and PHB were split into two further units each, yielding PHA, PHA2, PHB, and PHB2.

Original footage for PHB was 3361.6 square feet with 524 square feet for "elements" and 489 square feet for "limited common elements."
THe new PHB according to the amended dec is 1844 square feet. The elements and limited common elements are noted as well. Im guessing the "limited common elements are finding their way into the calculation.
1844 + 489 =2333 square feet, within that seemingly accepted practice of exaggerating square footage by 8% to 12%.
Or just add the 2 terraces at 121 square feet each and voila. The original dec doesnt mention them at all.

Who knows....

truth, That is great insight. Thank you.

ph41,
About 40 years ago my dad was shaking his head about one of the commercial buildings he was assessing because the broker was advertising "full floors' with a square footage larger than the lot size.

TeamM,
Especially for Coops, most brokers don't even attempt and actual calculation of the square footage, but simply put down "what it feels like" to them.

30, In your experience, what percentage of the condo listing have overstatement relative to the offering plan? I usually find that it is less than 5% of the listings leaving aside the debate about the offering plan methodology which we know can include sq footage beyond the exterior walls of the apartment (proportional share of lobby, gym, playroom etc).

>30yrs - This particular real estate person accompanied his talk/discussion with an ACTUAL RUBBER RULER - LOL

300_mercer,
I couldn't tell you the percent, but it is certainly smaller than the percentage of coops where it is overstated. One way to tell (which obviously doesn't always work) is if the stated SF is a nice round number. If a condo has "1100 SF" listed odds are they pulled it out of their ass because the Offering Plan SF are usually calculated off the percent of common interest and thus never a round number like that. However in condo buildings with small apartments, it is still somewhat endemic - take a look at sales in 135 West 16th St.

That makes sense. Thank you.