Make sure you measure a house before buying

Make sure you measure a house before buying

In many areas, the realtor is responsible for correctly measuring the square footage of a house they list, & if the measurements are off, the buyer can demand recompense from the realtor. In other areas, an independent laser measurement of a house is required before sale.

In Arizona, the buyer is responsible for verifying measurements, & often the square footage shown in the tax records or the MLS is not correct.

As an example, a house we owned was correctly measured by the appraiser when we bought it, as 1450 sq ft. We sold it because it couldn't be added onto, & we needed a bigger house. I noticed in the MLS a couple of years later that the seller was showing it as 1700 sq ft. We knew it hadn't been added onto, because the lot & pool prevented adding on, unless a second storey was added, which obviously hadn't been done. The tax records still said 1450 sq ft.

The reason it makes a difference, is that the sq ft price is often used in AZ as a comparable. In the case of bank owned houses, it is usually the only comparison allowed. (Banks tend to exclude pools, garages, improvements such as granite, hardwood, travertine, high end lighting, plumbing etc from their comparables).

Therefore, a higher sq footage in MLS leads to a lower price per sq ft value, which skews the neighborhood values. Likewise, lower sq footage in MLS leads to a higher price per sq foot value.

People fill in garages & patios to get more sq feet in their homes, but then there is no garage or carport, so the sq footage added is offset by not having a place to park.

So an accurate sq footage is needed to acurately decide on the house value.

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