Square footage: An empty real estate statistic? 
Measuring tape may not tell a house's whole story
By Alisha Alway Braatz, Wednesday, May 18, 2011.
Flickr image courtesy of wwarby.My No. 1 pet peeve in real estate is the square-footage demand of the house hunter. Unless he appraises houses for a living, it's near impossible for Home Consumer Carl to accurately gauge how big a room is -- let alone a whole house -- without a tape measure.
And many times, their demand for a certain square footage is unrelated to their desired use of that space. Hallways, closets, covered patios and pantries are all areas typically forgotten by buyers on a quest to purchase a 3,250-square-foot house with a movie theater and in-ground pool.
Take the house in which I live, for example. It's a really nice three-bedroom, three-bath home that measures just over 3,000 square feet.
That sounds like a nice little estate on paper, but I know that the back hallway that connects all the rooms of our 1955 California Ranch accounts for about 1,000 square feet of the aforementioned total space -- it could circle half of the Daytona Raceway.
more...
Premium Member account.
Premium Members have full access to all news archives & premium content.
Purchase Professional Membership for $199/year OR
Premium+ Membership for $149/year OR
News Membership for $69/year
All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News. Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright law.
