Hi Bob, that’s standard, including the interior walls.

This continues to be a slippery subject. Just got an appraisal back today for one of our buyers. I always have butterflies before looking at the sqft. This time, house was listed as 1803 sqft, appraiser said 1787. That’s 16 sqft difference, or 0.0088% smaller. Not enough to fuss over, and within the expected range of discrepancy.

Even 3.2% difference is not uncommon. Not saying you should be happy about it, but even surveyors are going to vary a bit. If you had another surveyor come out, I’ll bet it wouldn’t be exactly the same measurements as the first.

Good luck on your deal. We love Port A and vacation there every year, though we normally stay at the Island House on N Padre and just make daytrips over to Port A.

Steve

Of course, both the listing agent or our agent denied any responsibilities and didn’t help us at all when we tried to negotiate the price with the sellers. Our agent even went behind our back and leaked our negotiating strategy to the sellers and trapped us into buying the house at the full price. It was a horrible experience from start to finish with the Alain Pinel Realtors. I posted my review on my agent’s yelp and got threatened by their lawyer. {Moderator deleted link}

Buyers need to work with a lawyer and not with the real estate agent. You can never trust the realtors.

I don’t think it’s a “trick” or a “game” for 99% of the instances where sqft discrepancies occur. I think it’s usually people relying on bad information, or when there is conflicting information, choosing the number that benefits them most.

Good luck on your specific issue and I hope it gets resolved.

Steve

Condos are measured differently than homes. Homes are measured from the exterior such that a rectangle house that’s 50ft x 30ft would be a 1500 square foot home. That exact same floorplan, if a condo, would have a much smaller sqft size, even though it’s actually the exact same size, because condos are measured from interior walls. I’d call and talk to a real estate appraiser in your local area and ask how they do it there, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same everywhere. Once you know the method, you can measure it out yourself.

If it is in fact smaller than the tax records, if it’s like Texas, you just take your documentation down to the tax department and they make the correction.

Steve

Thanks for your story. Sounds like you took the issue all the way. I don’t see a way where Realtors, Appraisers, or Taxing Districts can ever be held liable for differences in square footage unless, as your case attempted to prove, actual fraud or intentional misrepresentation can be proven.

I just bought another house 2 months ago. The tax records say the size is 1800 sqft. The first appraiser measured it at 1859 square feet. We eventually fired that lender and switched to a different lender, and the 2nd appraiser measured the home at 1832 square feet. A home with our exact, identical floorplan, built the same year by the same builder, a few houses down, is on the market and listed at 1826 square feet.

What size is my home?

If we ever sell this house, have have to pick a size to list it at. Most sellers would want to use the largest verifiable size to make the price per sqft look better, and that’s ok as long as there is documentation such as an appraisal. I’d probably just leave the default tax sqft because it is 100% defensible as a 3rd party source, even though everyone knows the tax measurements are less accurate than an appraisal.

It’s really hard to hold sellers accountable to a variable measure that will be different each time taken. In your case, the difference was very large. In my example above, the largest variance is 3.2%, which is probably not an amount that most people would fuss over, but at $200 per sqft it’s an $11,800 swing in value if price per sqft is the only valuation metric used.

Steve.

District Court judge granted Summary judgement to defendants Dec ’07. We appealed. Filed Petition in Error and lost. Appealed to Oklahoma Supreme Court and won a UNANIMOUS decision in July of ’09.
http://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/GetCaseInformation.asp?submitted=true&viewtype=caseGeneral&casemasterID=99071&db=Appellate

The Supreme Court ruled:
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ok-supreme-court/1107418.html
¶ 31 Buyers of real property may rely on positive representations made by realtors and sellers about the property’s size.   Representations of the size of real property are statements of material fact, not expressions of opinion, and a buyer need not conduct a separate investigation to ascertain their truth.   If the buyer later alleges fraudulent misrepresentation against the realtor or seller, questions of whether the buyer was in fact deceived and suffered detriment because of the misrepresentation must be decided by the trier of fact.   A real estate licensee is in such instances also bound by a professional duty to treat all parties with honesty.

We FINALLY made it to a jury trial on 9/14. We were allowed our own jury instructions which cited the law from the Oklahoma Supreme court. Three of the jurors were homeowners. The realtor was unprofessional throughout the trial. The first day alone the judge had to call her down 5 times and tell her to just answer the question. In three days of trial the Defendants phones rang aloud in court 2 times each day. First the realtor, then the broker and the last day even their own attorney. We produced all the evidence that was black and white and cut and dry. We even called the original realtor (that sold this home to previous owners) and entered her listing into evidence which showed approx 2300 sq ft. She is the LONGEST selling realtor in our city and well respected. She hit it out of the ballpark. We proved they KNEW the home wasn’t that many sq feet and also that the mother/realtor had intimate knowledge of the home since she custom made all the curtains and painted murals in the bedrooms. Last witness they called was the appraiser. He qualified as an expert witness. He stated the home appraised for the purchase price. Our attorney finally got him to admit that the appraisal had NO MERIT in our case because we had been told the home contained 2890 sq ft. Attorney asked if the appraisal would have been more had the home contained 2890 and appraiser admitted it would. Rested and jury came back just 90 minutes later. 10-2 against us and we lost. We were flabbergasted after a 5 year long battle that we had lost considering our case had CHANGED Oklahoma Case Law. SO, now we have a home thats missing 703 sq ft and we are obligated to list it for 2187 instead of the 2890 we purchased. How’s that? SCREWED so I hope your other commenters fair better than we did. Would love to chat with you more.

Six months ago, we refinanced and got an excellent appraisal but did not notice the square footage until we decided to sell and noticed the appraisal came back with 4757. This 537 underage is a huge misrepresentation on the paert of the builder and his Realtor.

Based on square footage, our appraisal sould be 11.27 % higher.

All buyers buy on the house AND the square footage.

We have consulted an attorney and in Texas there is a 4 year period of time on Contract misrepresentation to go back to the seller and seek restitution.

Since this is the second time they re-listed the home still with the wrong sq. footage, I would definitely turn and file a complaint about the listing agent and the firm or broker to the Real Estate Commission in your state. It is not only wrong that the real estate agent is aware of it but still re-listed the house. Make sure you keep all of your paperwork if you do plan on filing a complaint to back up your complaint.

Since, I have not heard anything back from the seller, I am putting in my withdrawal of offer on the condo and moving on.

Ryan, Steve is right. The best thing is to move on.

If you’re out $1200, I would go to the county and check to see what the county has the house sq. footage as. If the y re-listed the house according to county records then there is really nothing you can do to get your money back, but if they did not you can turn the listing agent to the REC and see what happens.

Your option is just to move on and look for the next house. You can’t force a seller to adjust a price based on appraisal. If you believe a violation of Ethics has happened, or is happening, check with your local real estate commission or board of Realtors to find out what you can do, otherwise let it go.

But if the agent is reporting a public number (from the tax records), and stating the source, that is not a violation of ethics. There may be a requirement, however, to disclose that the tax sqft number may be incorrect. A prudent agent would disclose this up front, in my opinion, but it’s a can of worms because each time it’s measured a new number will be produced.

Steve