How to Measure Your Home’s Square Footage and Estimate Its Value
Something as concrete as the square footage of your home doesn’t seem like it could be up for interpretation. It’s math, after all. There should be one correct answer, right?
Not necessarily. Calculating the square footage of a home is variable and complicated and there’s more than one way to do it. This can be unsettling when it comes to what is likely the largest investment you have.
But don’t worry! To help us understand how to know what counts toward the square footage of your home and how it affects your home’s value, we’ve done some research and called on two experts.
We spoke with Angelina Keck, a top-selling Texas real estate agent; and Richard Henley, a Conway, Arkansas agent who works with 71% more single-family homes than the average agent in the area. They shared their insights and tips for calculating square footage and why it matters to the value of your home.
What counts toward the square footage of a home?
The official square footage of a home includes finished spaces that are heated and cooled. This is called the gross living area, or GLA. Generally speaking, to be considered part of the GLA, the area must be livable all year, have walls and finished floors, be heated and cooled, and have a ceiling that is at least seven feet high, though there are other specifics that can affect whether a space counts toward the GLA.
The value of your home is directly tied to the square footage. During the sale process, the appraiser will measure your house. If you have marketed the home with the incorrect square footage, that can come back to get you when the appraisal comes in.
Why is the accurate square footage of a home so important?
A home’s value is predicated on a number of factors, and while square footage is just one of them, it’s an important one.
“The value of your home is directly tied to the square footage,” Henley says. “During the sale process, the appraiser will measure your house. If you have marketed the home with the incorrect square footage, that can come back to get you when the appraisal comes in.”
Consider what would happen if the appraisal comes in and reveals the home is smaller than what you were marketing it as. In this case, the appraised value may come in lower than the sales price, creating an appraisal gap and putting the buyer’s mortgage approval in jeopardy, and you may have to lower the price to account for the lower square footage.
In contrast, “If you’ve been marketing the house smaller than the appraiser finds, then you’ve cost yourself money,” Henley says. “The sales price could have been higher.” Incorrect square footage can also affect the time it takes to sell the property.
Henley shared a story wherein a seller’s home had been sitting on the market for quite a while. The homeowner reached out to Henley for help. When Henley showed up and measured the house, he found that it was 400 square feet less than what was listed because the seller had included an area that didn’t count toward the GLA. Once the square footage was adjusted and the price lowered, the property sold in a week.
