Fastidious For Footage

“What’s the square footage?” These words strike fear into the hearts of co-op agents for a number of reasons. First and foremost, no one really knows. Most co-ops were built before square footages were consistently calculated (or calculated at all.) Appraisers rarely agree, and frequently diverge by as much as 15% of the total area. And buyers, increasingly interested in a way to quantify their purchase, look to us for this information.

In the old days (before the mid-90s) agents threw around square footage numbers, usually inflated, with some abandon. Then came a lawsuit which ended all that: a buyer, eager to get out of a contract he had signed, claimed that the seller’s agent had misrepresented the square footage. Appraisers were duly sent in and determined that indeed the apartment was smaller than the agent had represented on her marketing materials. It was an expensive mistake for the agent and the agency, and we all learned from it. The Residential Division of The Real Estate Board made a decision that square footages would NOT be required on co-op transmissions, and most of us stopped doing it. The risks were too great.

So how is the problem solved today? In the condominium and new development worlds, it’s uncomplicated. The “Schedule A” in the prospectus every buyer receives has square footage information for each apartment, and we agents simply quote those numbers. Ironically, the numbers are usually based on outside measurements and overstate the usable square footage by some considerable percentage. My agents and I sometimes joke that the numbers seem to be based on measuring the property from the middle of the street! Nonetheless, those numbers are what they are, so for anything for which there is an available Schedule A (mostly buildings either built  from the ground up or completely rehabilitated within the last 25 years) we simply pull the square footage numbers from those documents and feel we are on safe ground.

The challenge is in co-ops, especially those in the prewar buildings which line the major avenues of the Upper East and Upper West Sides. And my sense is that each agency, and to some degree each agent, manage this issue in their own way. Very few of us market our co-op listings with a square footage included; the risk is simply too high. Many colleagues simply say “Co-ops are not sold that way” and leave it at that. For me and my agents, when the stakes are high enough, I will sit down with a scale ruler and try to measure off the floor plan to arrive at a square footage number. I make certain assumptions: most bathrooms are four feet across, most closets are three feet deep. I leave 6 inches for walls when measuring several rooms together. Hallways can be as narrow as three feet or as wide as five feet.

Most importantly, when we come up with a number, we disclaim like crazy. My numbers are usually low compared to those used by others, which makes me feel more comfortable. And I advise my agents, when they are doing a comparables analysis for pricing purposes, to say something like what I say: the one thing I can tell you about my numbers is that they are wrong.  However, for the purposes of estimating value for this unit relative to similar units, I am making the same assumptions, and therefore the same mistakes. So while the ACTUAL number I am coming up with for the square footage of any unit is almost certainly incorrect, its size RELATIVE to others to which I am comparing it is pretty close. In other words, if my calculations indicate that Apartment A, which sold recently at 200 Central Park West, is 3000 square feet, and Apartment B in the same building, which you are considering buying, is 3300 square feet, then all you need to know is that if you are paying about 10% more for B than was paid for A, you are OK.

Buyers and sellers are frequently baffled as to why agents are so noncommittal or uncomfortable about square footage questions. Now you know.