Square Footage

There are many ways to calculate square footage, a key reason that appraisers measure their own. You could easily have two units with the same advertised square footage and vastly different space between the walls.

They want to get their money back for all that crazy marble they piled into the bathrooms and kitchen. Plus, there's always a premium for 'outdoor space' ;-)

Also: many cases where the square footage just doesn't seem to add up when you look at the floorplan and do the math. Ex: #5C at 220 E 87th. Can't possibly be 400 sq ft if the dimensions in the floorplan are accurate. Have read sometimes they include hallway space, common areas...Real estate in NY feels such an arcane, buyer beware market. Thus the importance (and added expense) of getting a good broker, I guess

The logic is that they are giving you the square footage as it reflects on how many shares the apartment has in the building but I agree it can be deceiving.

MTH, Are you adding exterior walls in your square footage and all interior walls? Exterior walls are usually 15 inches thick .Shared interior wall can be 6'' to 10'' and you need to take half of that. While square footage is frequently over stated, in this case if you take a 35x13 box and deduct space on the bottom right, you wouldn't be far off from 400 sq ft.

And brokers wouldn't tell you square footage. Only an appraiser or a building professional will. In most cases, it is fairly easy to calculate the square footage if you use the method I described. Of there are many crybabies who only want to add up the area of room dimensions as if the walls and closets belong to someone else. For condos, the square footage and how it is calculated is in the offering plan.

@300_mercer - Wasn't thinking about wall space so maybe it adds up - thanks. It makes it a little more challenging to figure out whether all your stuff will fit though.

If you're serious about an apartment the best thing to do is measure. Then you can make a floor plan and figure out what fits.