Short Square Footage (Austin: comparable sales, sale, condominiums)

[G Grasshopper]

I imagine that the OP made a decision, one way or the other, and the question is no longer up for consideration, since the purchase was to close on 6/15.

[Jennibc]

Originally Posted by G Grasshopper

I imagine that the OP made a decision, one way or the other, and the question is no longer up for consideration, since the purchase was to close on 6/15.

Yes, and I am really curious what he/she decided. I always like it when someone who starts a thread comes back to give a followup report.

[loves2read]

the seller may have told his/her realtor what square ft he thought the house had...but the realtor is supposed to do a measurement to verify that...
I wonder if the seller's realtor did in fact do that--or just take the seller's word for sq ft--
most people do not have a floorplan of their house unless they were the original buyers from the builder--sometimes you get a set of plans or there is a layout with sales material...

when we bought our house in DFW area more than a year ago now--the seller was not coming down on price to reflect what the market was doing--he had a number in mind that he got from talking to builders about what it would cost to rebuild his house--
we had appraiser come out and do appraisal--he came up with 100+ ft MORE than what the seller was claiming the house had--more than the tax authority had as well...
the appraisal was more than 20K less than what the seller thought was a fair price--but we could not get him to come down that much--and we (my husband especially) wanted the house--so we bought at price I thought was high for that market...

does the 200 ft difference really price that house out of the comps?
if you give up your earnest money you are basically paying $500 a ft for those missing feet...

[austinnerd]

Originally Posted by loves2read

the seller may have told his/her realtor what square ft he thought the house had...but the realtor is supposed to do a measurement to verify that...
I wonder if the seller's realtor did in fact do that--or just take the seller's word for sq ft--
most people do not have a floorplan of their house unless they were the original buyers from the builder--sometimes you get a set of plans or there is a layout with sales material...

I would think that this would be a highly unusual request for a realtor. Even if the realtor agreed to do such a thing, why would that number be any more trust worthy than an appraisers or the tax records? And really, isn't that the crux of the problem?

[CarnivalGal]

For our house, the tax records have one number, the builder has another, and it was appraised at yet a different number. Not unusual at all.

[austin-steve]

the seller may have told his/her realtor what square ft he thought the house had...but the realtor is supposed to do a measurement to verify that...

This 100% incorrect and wrong. Realtors (at least in Texas) never measure houses or represent the size other than to quote a recognized third party source such as tax record or appraisal. That's not our area of expertise. Buyers in Texas are 100% responsible for verifying information that they deem important.

Steve

[drippingspringsgal]

Our house has 3 different square footage numbers. One is the county number, one is the builder's number and one is the appraiser's number. There's no way to know which is the correct number, so when we listed our house we just gave the prospective buyers all 3 numbers so all the info was out on the table. I think this is pretty common. By the way, in other parts of the county there is not this obsession about price per square foot. In CA and NY you just don't hear about it all the time like you do here. People buy houses because they like them, not because of the price per square foot.

[SickOfCalifornia]

I just bought a house in Austin. Listed and published at 3,000 square feet. Imagine that - a two-story home with all those nooks and corners and they built it so precisely that it came out to exactly 3,000 square feet even. Isn't that amazing? The architect must've planned out every single tile. Hahahaha

[eileenkeeney]

My appraisal came out with more square footage than the tax records indicate.
But I think they forgot to subtract for the closet space, and the space taken up by the thickness of the walls.
I think they just did some simple math based on the measurements.
But when I list it for sale, I am going to use their number (and state that it is per the appraisal).
In fact, I will get the tax record corrected, maybe right before I sell.

[austin-steve]

But I think they forgot to subtract for the closet space, and the space taken up by the thickness of the walls.

That's not supposed to be subtracted. If your house was a perfect 30x40 rectangle, from exterior corner to exterior corner, its sqft would be 1200.
In commercial there is a concept of "net usable space" and it's not uncommon for more precise interior measurements to be used, but in residential, the appraisers use the exterior measurements because it would be extremely difficult to subtract out wall widths, under stairs, counter space, etc.

For example, if you wanted to lay all new wood floors, and the flooring guy came out to measure total floorspace, including closets, he's going to come up with a much smaller number that the tcad or appraiser's sqft of the home.

Steve