Selling Your Residence? Serenity is Found in Requesting to Have Your Residence Physically Measured by an Appraiser

Whether selling a home solo or contracting your home with a real estate broker, the important item to a hassle free exchange is an truthful illustration of your home’s actual characteristics in full documentation. A crucial move in the process of achieving an truthful illustration of your home is achieving an truthful calculation of inhabitable area, a crucial move that is sadly skipped. As one of the first steps in determining a home’s listing amount an real estate agent will provide a Comparable Market Analysis ,CMA, which details selected transactions in the general area. However, without an truthful calculation of your home's living area, the real estate agent’s CMA will not be very helpful.

In the USA, the majority of realtors base the price per sq.ft. of a home on livable area size. Livable area is defined as the area of a home which is air conditioned, directly accessed from the inside of the home and showing the quality of construction similar to the original home. Livable area is taken from the exterior walls, not from the inner part of the house. All real estate appraisers are to abide by the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) rules for residential units when measuring home area, which recommends physical measurement.

More over, the most common litigation cases in real estate now a days is falsification of livable area size. I’ve been to residences under contract where the home’s contents are packed up and the seller is ready to go only to be told that their property’s livable area was not truthfully represented to begin with. The purchase agreement then has to be renegotiated or is completely voidunacceptable| with no reason for the buyer to carry on the purchase. The seller’s home sells for thousands of dollars below the original price. For this reason you should not permit the realtor to publish your living area based on county records, an old set of plans (which can and are changed sometimes during construction), or an estimate of what the typical home size in your neighborhood.

Here is a scenario: A 3,000 square foot home is listed for sale @ 456 Maple Drive. The home is offered at $120/sf x 2,000sf = $240,000. Rather than actually measuring the home to obtain an truthful living area, the gross living area was obtained with county records. The home receives a purchase agreement for $240,000. However, the appraiser delivers her appraisal showing 1,840sf and an appraised value of $220,800, some $19,200 less than the agreed price. The sellers are informed that they will need to renegotiate the purchase amount because the living area is actually 1,840sf, not the stated 2,000sf. The sellers get upset and file a suit the former owners for misrepresentation of living area.

Can this actually happen in house transactions? Certainly and it does. This is why it is so crucial to have your home measured by the professional listing your property, whether by owner or by real estate agent, or preferably, by an appraiser. After doing so, you will have documented verification of your actual living area.
Unlike a real estate broker, an appraiser has no vested interest in what amount for which the home is sold for. Appraisal fees are determined by efforts to create the report and not a percentage of the sales amount. Therefore, a professional appraisal can often help homeowners make the best decisions setting a fair sales price for their homes size. Whether you’re thinking of listing for sale by owner or through an real estate agent, it is always a smart idea to get an appraisal prior to listing your home.

This article was written by William Cobb with the assistance of R. Chandler Smith. Bill 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 Cobb and Accurate Valuations Group, visit Baton Rouge House Appraiser. R. Chandler Smith is a successful real estate whiz in the Houston Texas area. He manages Houston Real Estate Appraisal

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