Evaluating Your Home? Feeling Comfortable Results From Having Your Home Personally Measured by an Appraiser

By: R Chandler Smith

Whether auctioning a residence solo or listing your residence with a professional, the key item to a fast transaction is an objective statement of your residence’s substantial features in writing. A key phase in the development of finding an objective statement of your residence is finding an objective computation of gross living area, a key phase that is often lost on some. As one of the first steps in deciding on a residence’s listing price an real estate sales person will provide a Comparable Market Analysis (CMA) which reveals selected sales in the surrounding area. However, without an objective calculation of your residence's living area, the real estate sales person’s CMA will not be very helpful.

In the US, the majority of real estate professionals base the price per sq.ft. of a residence on living area size. Living area is thought as the part of a residence which is heated and cooled, immediately entered within the interior of the residence and being of the quality of construction identical to the original residence. Living area is taken from the outside walls, not from the inner walls. All agents are to stick to the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) guidelines for single family residential units when calculating residence area, which recommends actual measurement.

Furthermore, the most common lawsuits in real estate today is falsification of unit size. I’ve been to residences under contract where the residence’s contents are boxed up and the home seller is ready to move only to be told that their home’s living area was not objectively represented to start with. The purchase contract then has to be renegotiated or is absolutely null| with no obligation for the buyer to continue the sale. The seller’s residence sells for thousands of dollars less. For this reason you should not allow the listing broker to state your living area based on county records, an old set of plans (which can and are altered sometimes during construction), or an estimate of what the typical residence size in your neighborhood.

Here is a situation: A 2,000 square foot residence is listed for sale @ 220 Lover Dr. The residence is offered at $120/sf x 2,000sf = $240,000. Instead of physically measuring the residence to know an objective living area, the gross living area was obtained relying upon county records. The residence gets a buyer for $240,000. However, the appraiser delivers his appraisal showing 1,840sf and an appraised value of $220,800, some $19,200 less than the purchase price. The sellers are informed that they will have to renegotiate the purchase price because the living area is actually 1,840sf, not the stated 2,000sf. The sellers get upset and sue the former owners for falsification of living area.

Can this actually take place in property transfers? You bet, and it does. This is why it is so crucial to have your residence measured by the professional listing your house, whether by owner or by real estate sales person, or preferably, by an appraiser. Upon doing so, you will have actual verification of your actual living area.
Unlike a real estate agent, an appraiser has no vested interest in what amount for which the residence is worth. Appraisal fees are determined by amount of work to create the report and not a percentage of the sales price. Therefore, a professional appraisal can often help homeowners yield the best decisions setting a accurate asking price for their residences size. Whether you’re considering listing FSBO or through an real estate sales person, it is always a wise idea to get an appraisal prior to listing your property.

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This article was written by William D. Cobb with the assistance of R. Chandler Smith. William heads Accurate Valuations Group and has been licensed as a residential appraiser for 15 years now primarily in the Greater Baton Rouge, Louisiana market area. For more information on William D. Cobb and Accurate Valuations Group, visit Baton Rouge Property Appraisal. R. Chandler Smith is an adept real estate professional in the Houston area. He oversees Houston Real Estate Appraisal

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