Exaggerated Square Footage

Too Much of a Good Thing

If you were a 5' 6" man, would you try to pass yourself off as 5' 9"?

I wouldn't condone it -- but I'd at least understand it.

But why would a 6' 5" man say he was 6' 9" -- unless, perhaps, he was an NBA player?

In a nutshell, that was my reaction showing a Plymouth home earlier today that appeared to be well below its stated 4,600 finished square feet (to my eye, at least 15% below).

Not only does such an . . . . uh, exaggeration hurt the Seller's credibility with prospective Buyers, it actually limits the pool of such Buyers.

That's because there are a lot more people in the market for a 3,800 square foot house than a 4,600 square foot house.

P.S.: The one exception I'm aware of to pro basketball players tending to pad their height is Bill Walton, the former UCLA and NBA great.

Self-conscious about being so tall, he reportedly gave his height as 6' 11" instead of the 7'-plus he really is.

At least, that's the story I heard when I was a Stanford undergrad, and Walton was at the Law School (I'd see him on campus occasionally, and he certainly looked 7'-plus. More often, I'd just see his gigantic bike in front of the Law School).

The House That Shrank

Wrong (Measurement) Numbers

Who are you going to believe, me or your own lieing eyes?

--New Yorker cartoon, showing husband in bed with another woman, to his spouse, standing in the doorway.

Before discussing homes where the square footage is dramatically off -- I'll let you guess which direction -- two caveats:

One. It happens much less often than you might think.

Anecdotally, I'd say less than 5% of the homes listed on MLS at any given moment materially overstate their square footage (call it more than 10%, which translates to billing a 3,000 square foot home as 3,300 or more).

Two. Measurement errors, when they happen, are usually due to irregular features in a given home.

So, a room that isn't a perfect rectangle is listed as 14' x 12.' While those measurements may not be the exact width or length, often times, Buyers will discover that the corresponding square footage -- in this case, 168' -- is quite accurate.

Or the Seller will include the slab under a three season porch as part of the foundation, or count as finished square feet a basement where the height is just shy of the legal seven feet.

Aggressive, perhaps, but not the stuff of lawsuits -- and also usually pretty conspicuous to prospective Buyers, who can (and do) check property tax records, bring measuring tapes, etc.

Outliers

That said, I've encountered not one but two homes in the last year or so where the square footage "miss" was nothing less than egregious.

Call them "the exceptions that prove the rule."

The first home, a Cape Cod in St. Louis Park's Fern Hill neighborhood, has already been the subject of three posts on this blog ("Home on a Diet"; "Playing Realtor Roulette"; "Eight Months Later, Deal or No Deal?").

When the home was originally listed (at $379.9k) in July, 2008, the total finished square feet ("FSF") was given as 3,937.

Today, the home -- which is still for sale, at $330k -- has 2,754 FSF.

Case #2

The second home, in Golden Valley's Lion's Park neighborhood, originally came on the market last September. Total FSF at the time was 4,593.

Today, the FSF is given as 2,593 (the home's status is now "Pending," or under contract but not yet closed).

In each of the foregoing cases, you'd speculate that the exaggerated square footage added market time and hurt the ultimate selling (or asking) price.

So why do it?

Perhaps in the short-sighted calculation that it would drive showings, and once in the home prospective Buyers would love it so much that they wouldn't care (true, and definitely false, respectively).

Housing Trends 2010 (Cont.): 'Cranking up the Volume'

Beyond Finished Square Feet

In a tight economy, builders and homeowners alike must figure out how to make their houses live and feel bigger without increasing their finished square feet (and therefore cost).

How do you do that?

Increase the volume.

Huh??

Whereas square footage is two-dimensional, volume is three dimensional.

Consider two identical homes, except one has 10' ceilings throughout, the other 8' ceilings: the former literally has 25% more volume!

Other techniques to make homes feel bigger without increasing their footprint include:

--Wider halls and staircases;

--More (and larger) windows;

--Turning unfinished dark, interior basement space --now an afterthought in many homes -- into very finished, high tech space (typically, a media room with lots of wires and cables, recessed lighting, and even in-floor heat)

--A modified "Great Room" design (few interior walls) featuring a combined Kitchen/Family Room -- typically with a fireplace and elaborate surround as the focal point of the latter.

Take all this extra volume; add formerly wasted but now "technologically re-purposed" space (like the media room); and suddenly an already big, 4,000 square foot can feel positively huge!

Or, a 2,500 square foot can easily suffice instead of a 3,500 square foot home.

"I Want What They Got"

Ordering Off the Real Estate "Menu"

No, it's not what waiters in restaurants are hearing.

It's what would-be Sellers are telling their Realtors. "They," of course, are the owners of a neighboring home that sold a year -- or three -- earlier.

Aside from selling in similar market conditions, if you "want what they got," you also need to "have what they had": same condition, finished square feet, floor plan, curb appeal, etc.

29,000 Ft. Peaks & 3,000 FSF Houses

29,000 Foot Peaks and 3,000 FSF Houses

What do 29,000 foot mountain peaks and 3,000 finished square foot ("FSF") houses have in common?

They don't exist. Or at least, almost never.*

When I see a house listed on MLS ("Multiple Listing Service") with 3,010 FSF (or 2,043 FSF, or similar), I'm immediately skeptical. My thought is, the Realtor knows that Buyers tend to look in discrete ranges -- like over 3,000 FSF, 2,000 to 2,500 FSF, etc. -- and tend to "stretch" sometimes to meet those cut-off's.

I can't prove it, but I'd guess that at least half the time, when a house on MLS just trips an obvious round number, in fact, it's real size is below it (sometimes, well below).

*I heard a story -- not sure if it's apocryphal or not -- that the surveyors who first measured Mount Everest came up with exactly 29,000 feet. However, because they thought that "headquarters" would automatically assume that they'd rounded, they changed the number to 29,029 feet.