I know that in Maine, the garage and basement, unfinished areas and some porches/decks count as "Effective Square Feet" but we also have "Living Area" which is usually the HVAC'ed area.

Here is a generic guide for calculating sq footage of a residential property. California real estate guidelines may vary. Good luck, Seth. Hope it works out!

http://homebuying.about.com/od/reale...re_footage.htm

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Xoutpost.com - where you come for the information but stay for the friendships

Thank you sir... This deal is getting uglier by the day...
I may have to run away from it..

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"When two people agree on everything, one of them is not necessary" - Arliss

That is a pretty good basic guideline.


I wouldn't count the room above the garage as gross living area (GLA) if there isn't a fixed HVAC source period. I have done a few appraisals where I counted a similar room as GLA, but it had a fixed HVAC source and completely covered walkways to and from.

Typically, what I would do is not count it as GLA (even with a fixed HVAC source) and credit it as a seperate structure. Then I would try to find comparable sales with similar structures.

I am not sure about Cali rules, but here anything below the threshhold of the front door is considered basement area. I have a feeling that many Cali agents add finished basement area into the GLA. Can that be happening in your situation?

The garage itself (unfinished parking area) should not be counted as GLA under any circumstances.

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The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has published a document entitled, "Square Footage – Method for Calculating" (ANSI Z765-2003) that applies to single family houses.

http://www.sira.org/pdf/ansi20standards%20z765_2003.pdf

Probably more than you ever wanted to know, and then some.

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Jackpot!

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Profeshenal spellar

3215/4800 = 67%. That's a huge difference. Often there are measurement variations if you have irregular shaped rooms, but you're not going to be off by much. 5-10% is probably reasonable. But 33% difference is way off.

Call out the selling agent on the discrepancy. He or she probably won't have an answer as agents typically go off the word of the owner as to how big the house is. But considering this is a very high end house, you would think the agent would spend the time and money to ensure the house was listed accurately.

The local county tax assessor's office should have the documents which would include the original SF at the time of valuation and the addition of any subsequent improvements.

I'd also bring in a professional appraiser and get the house measured. Caveat emptor definitely applies here. If you don't resolve this detail, you're stuck.

Typically in California, homes with basements are few and far between. What is typical in California are split level homes built on hillsides where there is living space below the front door threshhold, so the distinction between finished and unfinished comes down to HVAC, windows sizes, and ingres/egres.

Finished utility rooms including basements and garages converted to living space are typically added to SF, but the better agents will typically add a comment if these rooms are included in the total SF in the MLS listing to avoid confusion.

The local CTA will have the Docs, accessible by 'puter, but they may
not be accurate: our tax assessor/appraiser has come by twice in 8
year. Both times they stood at the end of the driveway and once
up on the lil'private road, looking down at front of house through the
woods. They listed it as bigger by 20% and, with 2 more bedrooms
than we have. We fought it and got county RE taxes reduced by 25%.
Maybe Cali is different and has more accurate "looks"...

I really concur with Mike above, (my bold). I wouldn't buy a shack
let alone a crib that looked/costs like Seth's pics, without a very
reputable and OCD house appraiser going through the Joint with
a fine tooth comb, imo.
GL,mD