Square Foot Exaggeration??
We recently agreed directly with the owner (no brokers on either side) on a price to pay for a coop apartment in Brooklyn. Turns out their square footage estimate is pretty far off. The real square footage (according to our measurements) is around 15% less than what they advertised. Is this normal?? We are feeling…
We recently agreed directly with the owner (no brokers on either side) on a price to pay for a coop apartment in Brooklyn. Turns out their square footage estimate is pretty far off. The real square footage (according to our measurements) is around 15% less than what they advertised.
Is this normal??
We are feeling shaken and confused.
We would really welcome any advice. Thanks.
Thanks again, all.
We were really generous with our measurements (allowing for exterior walls, all closets, etc., adding the 24 SF storage unit, etc; there is no real common space in the building, save hallways — and I was under the impression those aren’t “owned” by the coop shareholder anyway?) and it was still way off. The owner had drawn a floor plan by hand and individual room measurements were really inaccurate, for instance one room was not 10 x 13 but really 8 x 13 and another was 13 feet wide, not 15.5.
We talked them down by $10,000, have a good lawyer and made the deal contingent on the bank appraisal coming in above a certain price that we would feel comfortable with. I guess you never fully know if you are getting a good deal, but we feel pretty confident that the demand for apartments this size in this neighborhood is likely to go up, and in any case we aren’t planning to sell anytime soon.
Thanks again, all. Happy fourth.
Since you are operating without brokers, you need to pay for your own expert advice. Get a professional to inspect and appraise the apartment, and make your contract conditional on the accuracy of the representations made by the seller. You also will need a real lawyer, not just a rubber-stamp filing type.
Check your measurement method. Measurement should go from center of demising partitions between apartments. Interior partition are included as well as all internal structural elements. Measure to the face of glass at the perimeter and the center of the wall at the hallway (also a demising partition). If you just measured the rooms and totaled them up you’d find the difference to be significant.
“The real square footage (according to our measurements) “- who says the way you measured is correct and accurate?
Do you have some legal guidelines for how you did it?
Often sq ft. quotes do include some share of public space.
A few thousand off? I doubt Newbie18 is talking a couple of square feet. I love the argument that its too complicated to operate a laser tape and elementary geometry is too hard. Imagine the architects and contractors who had to build those curved surfaces…what complete geniuses! Lets get them to the oil spill.
The argument that sf comps aren’t reliable because the sf numbers are mythology is true in the sense that sellers can’t afford to lose what they have already paid for, so the decibels of that argument will be very long and the market could be strong enough to win.
Comp your co-op to the *condo* PSF numbers, and apply the % discount in the market from stats like Miller Samuel for your area. Does that reality check jive with your SF calcs? If so maybe you won’t be too disappointed with that risk. If not you’ll have to make a decision if you are willing to play a game of “hot potato”.
Don’t kill a deal for the sake of getting cold feet, but keep in mind just because it was very fast and loose in the past (starting with the original conversions) doesn’t mean when you go to sell the market won’t have new take on life.
PSF is really meaningless. Do you like the place? Your bed fits where you thought it would? Can you knock a few thousand off? Then, cool. And when you sell you can say, “Oh, I’ve never figured out the whole sq foot thing.. When we bought we were told it was 1500 sq ft”
When you get it appraised, they give you an entirely new number.
Thanks so much for your comments! This forum is such a great resource.
Invisible, the articles you linked to were really helpful. I guess we’re not alone.
This whole charade makes it so difficult to compare apartments. Price per SF seems almost meaningless! We just don’t want to be caught 3 years from now, selling our place, having to advertise the place a bit more realistically (in terms of SF) and not getting anyone to turn up at the open house.
We’re going to try to renegotiate, because we don’t feel comfortable with the PSF we’ve offered to pay.
Next time we buy, we’ll bring the tape measure with us to open houses!!
is this normal? yes. it has long been known for brokers / sellers to outright lie with a co-op, where square footage has not historically been part of public record since you’re buying shares and not real estate. granted, many buyers are probably just trying to sell under the assumption of square footage of where they bought, which works OK in all cash bidding war markets, now not so much.
http://bk.ly/szd
http://bk.ly/sze
also don’t forget the video before the bubble http://bk.ly/szf
You are most likely paying for a % of the public space.