Hello in today's video,
We're going to answer a great
question that was asked in our forum about How to Verify Square Footage on a Listing in New York City
This is a great question asked by a first-time homebuyer
on a condo listing which is actually easier much easier to verify than a co-op listing
So the first thing to do is let's take a look at this listing online and see what the listing agent is claiming the size
to be
You can use any site
we simply google the address and the first or second one that came up happen to be this site Street easy and
this
Street easy says that the square footage given by the litigation is a thousand square feet
Now the buyer thought this was an impossibly round number. So how do we verify this?
Furthermore just by looking--looking at public data
19E, which is the same line in the same building just on a different floor
was listed as
1056 square feet which seems
perhaps more real because it's specific. Furthermore, this exact same unit was listed by different broker
for nine hundred and forty four square feet. So what is the actual size of any of these apartments? How can we verify this?
So you can Google any number of things to access the New York City Department of Finance website
You can google this you could Google BBL lookup which is another favorite one of mine
Know it takes you to the same place
Notice that when I type this in it is 49th street
you don't do the th because if you do that, the system will not recognize it
You don't have to put an apartment number if you don't wish it or just show you the list of all of the
units in this building, but this is more specific
So you'll see a slew of data and
including the notice of property value, which is very valuable
This is essentially assessment data provided by the city
Take a look and
they will often provide a number a square footage number
often pulled from the original offering plan in this case they call it the
condo declaration essentially similar
So they say that square footage 1,056
Now if you'll remember this figure actually
corresponds to what 19E was listed by one of the two brokers which had listed 19E. But if you go back
to
26E where they just listed it as a round number of a thousand
They weren't actually being deceptive and because it is, the city thinks its
1,056 and they got that number from an official source
Likely the original offer plan or condo declaration
So, this isn't a problem. But let's check out 19 E just for,
as a good exercise to see what is going on with 19 E and how big it is, really?
Let's go back
So you'll see that 19 E says
1,056 as well, which makes sense. They are both units of the same line. So 1,056 is correct, and this simply means that
One of the brokers who had listed 19E for some reason put 944
Not sure where they got that from
Now it's important to keep in mind that just
because we found an official number for this condo
from an original offering plan or condo lot declaration. Plus on the
New York City Department of Finance website just because we have an official number that is verifiable
It doesn't mean that
it is truly
1,056 the square feet interior
because
there are many different ways of measuring square footage and the rules can vary dramatically from building to building
For example,
many order
buildings who are perhaps more conservative
and they're offering plan
you may see that the square footage is measured using the
interior square footage or perhaps the usable square footage so that that is actually in the most conservative way
of measuring. It's essentially from the inner walls
to the inner walls. So what is you know interior? What is usable?
You know, on the other hand some buildings
especially some newer new construction buildings will be much more aggressive. They will almost always or very often
use the wall space. So for example
they will measure square footage and include the a hundred percent of the wall space
That is that is exterior for each exterior wall because that is arguably
Not shared with anyone so though include a hundred percent of that wall space for exterior walls in the unit
And four walls that are shared with neighbors though give you credit for 50% of that space
So, you know what space wall is getting pretty thick and that is valuable real estate there
So a lot of new construction buildings will
include that but some of that they go even further and even include common areas such as the
hallways as well as
even elevators, elevator bank space and that is pretty common
for you know buildings perhaps with that are full floor that have a private key to elevator
Some buildings
will be tricky and include that elevator Bank stays as part of the square footage
So, the important thing to take away from this is just because you can if you do manage to see a number listed somewhere perhaps in
an offering plan
New York State Department of Finance the
Notice of property value just because you see a specific number it's not an apples to apples comparison
versus another building. You have to keep that in mind
Square footage is measured differently on a custom basis, on a building by building basis
So if you really want to get into the nitty-gritty of it you do have to look at the
original offering plan to see exactly how they measure square footage
Now keep in mind this is rather impractical or not practical
when you are simply searching because many listing agents will be hesitant to
give you the original offering plan, which is a huge dock and sometimes which is not available
electronically
so they will be very hesitant to give you that when you have an even place an offer yet
Those materials, due diligence materials including the original offer plan are to be delivered after you have an accepted offer and the
for your lawyer to review on your behalf
So again, just keep this in mind
You could always of course ask the listing agent or ask your buyer's agent to see if they have to know how
its measured and you know the best way end of the day is to see
what's publicly available in terms of hard data
but also to simply visit the apartment and visit a lot of comparable apartments just to get an idea of
what sizes are relative to each other. So you really do have to see yourself at the end of the day
In any case, please remember to read this great article that we've created
about how to measure square feet. It's on our blog as well as our YouTube channel. We have
new videos about how to measure square feet. If you've
enjoyed this video please remember to subscribe to our channel, hit like, leave a comment. We'll get back to you right away and
we really do appreciate your viewership and
of course if you need any help with buying an apartment as you can see it's not
something you can simply do and click online. It is a bit more of
Esoteric investment
Even a regular home purchase. If you do need some help, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. We do have a
very large network of traditional very experienced partner brokers based throughout New York in the city
Hudson Valley and Long Island at the moment who would be willing to help work with you and the advice is free
Doesn't cost you anything and not only that and they'd be willing to give you a closing gift
through our Hauseit buyer closing credit program. Up to 2% of the purchase price to help cover your closing cost
as a check post closing and best of all because the
it is a discreet service because our traditional partner brokers are not discount brokers
there is much less friction in the buying process and the closing gift is just that arrangement between you and your agent
So, we hope you've enjoyed this video. Please remember to subscribe and we look forward to seeing you on the next one. Thank you so much!