One small part of what real estate appraisers do is measure homes to calculate the living area or “square footage.” The standard that is typically used by most home appraisers to measure and calculate living area is provided by ANSI (American National Standard Institute). However, in this post I’m focusing on the geometry and simple math of determining the total area.
Normally, appraisers draw homes using software that automatically calculates the area. Our company recently measured a home of an engineer by using just such software. After examining the computer generated home sketch, the engineer said that the upper level of his home (shown in the illustration above) had been incorrectly calculated. He then provided his handwritten calculations as support.
When I heard this, my stomach knotted up and I thought, “Did this engineer find a bug in our software?” A Quality Appraisal associates measure many homes each year all around the Portland area. I thought, “Is this an isolated bug or something that could have caused errors in hundreds of appraisals or measurements?” We don’t manually check the calculations of the software on all of our measurements before they are delivered to a client. Maybe we should.
I could not wait to get back to my office and check for myself. Once in the office, I deconstructed the drawing into five smaller shapes (a composite figure and some appraiser software will do this automatically) and then I was able to easily calculate the area as shown in the figure above. To my relief, I came up with exactly the same number as the software total for the upper level. After this experience, I concluded it is good practice for appraisers to occasionally check the calculations totaled by our sketching software. For more information on how to deconstruct a composite figure and add up the individual areas, here is a short helpful video from Mathtrain.TV.
Did I leave anything out or do you want to join in the conversation? Let me know in the comments below.
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You are getting ready to list your home for sale and the real estate agent suggests that you have a floor plan measurement sketch done by an appraiser. Some real estate appraisers and agents in Portland, Oregon call floor plans “Room Service.” Floor plans are a great idea to assist in marketing your property attractively and accurately. A diagram helps buyers visualize the layout of the house before they visit it.
When an appraiser measures a home in Portland, most often the measurements turn out to be slightly larger than county records show. However, in this example, the appraiser spends over an hour at your property and produces a beautiful drawing, but the measurements are smaller than those that are recorded by the county or other sources. What should you do?
Understand that it is better to advertise the correct square footage. Listing the property with overstated measurements could increase liability, cause a frustratingly low appraisal, result in a failed sale, or lead to increased buyer negotiating leverage.
Put it in perspective. By how much is the square footage smaller? Many buyers will not even recognize a loss of only 50 or 100 square feet. Small variations in measurements from one appraiser to the next are common and are usually insignificant, often resulting from rounding.
If you think that the appraiser has made an error, use the floor plan sketch to go around the house and individually check the measurements. Remember that areas are typically measured from the outside. In addition, stairs are included in all levels but finished areas less than five feet in ceiling height (common under the roof slope in attics) are not (when using ANSI). I recommend checking to see if things make sense. For example, if you know that the second floor occupies the same footprint as the main floor, check to see that those measurements are the same on both floors.
In February I wrote a blog post about the value of our Portland appraiser home measurement service and how it can increase the sales price of a home, reduce liability for the agent, and reduce problems at closing. Since that post, response for the service has been overwhelming and we have been receiving feedback on the product. Based on customer demand, we offer our clients home measurement service with or without floorplan depiction of interior walls as shown in the image above.
The basic home measurement service focuses on providing just the information that agents need when entering accurate data in the RMLS. This includes the total living area for each level of the home and the room dimensions. However, we find that including the floorplan layout of interior walls makes listing packets look even more attractive. As a result, floorplan measurement with interior walls has become our most popular product.