I often asked what the square footage of a home for sale is. This is a really "gray" area, unfortunately. Most often, I will quote the square footage stated in the Maryland State Department of Taxation and Assessments (SDAT) database. This figure is normally the approximate square footage of the home, NOT including:
- the basement, whether it's finished or not
- hallways
- baths
- closet space
- foyers
- garage space -- even if it has a workshop section to it
SDAT does also include a "livable" finished square footage number for the basement. I find that many homes have been remodeled and expanded or have finished their basement; and SDAT's numbers often don't reflect that improvement. I'm guessing it's dependent upon whether or not plans were filed with the county when updates were done. Either way, you can see that the numbers can be somewhat misleading.
However, be aware that most builders will advertise the square footage of the homes they build as the total square footage as measured by the dimensions of the home times the number of floors PLUS the basement.
As you can see, there can be a HUGE discrepancy between these two numbers. The same home in one scenario had an SDAT square footage of 1888 and a builder's advertised square footage of 3100 square feet! Often people come to my open houses quoting the numbers they found from various sources, not understanding that they are being somewhat mislead.
Appraisers use a different paradigm than these, just to make things even more complicated.
The bottom line is this: You can't count on the square footage quote from any source to be completely accurate, since everyone uses a different definition of what space should be included in the total. Compare room sizes of competing properties to be sure that you're comparing "apples to apples". Your agent should have a laser measuring tool available which would allow you to quickly measure the rooms yourself, to be sure you're getting what you think you're buying. Buying a home is a significant investment for most of us. Protect yourself and don't rely on square footage quotes -- even from the "experts".
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