Home Measurement Basics for Appraisers

Appraisers are the ultimate square footage experts. Learn to produce consistent, reliable, and reproducible square footage measurements in single- family homes, based on the ANSI Guideline. The most complete "how to" course for measuring residential square footage ever created. This course will give you a new perspective on the all-powerful price-per-square-foot formula. Discover the secret power of square footage. Indeed, Size Matters!

This course describes the most often utilized methods and procedures for measuring and calculating square footage in detached single-family dwellings. The enclosed principles and practices are based on the American National Standard for Single-Family Buildings (ANSI) Guideline. This course offers real estate appraisers a stronger understanding of this complex topic, and a closer look at how square footage influences home values in CMAs, AVMs and appraisals. Explore inside the public records and MLS systems and discover how inaccurate square footage information changes home values, and helps to create low appraisals. Quality appraisals require quality property details. Square footage is the "currency of real estate" and appraisers are the square footage experts!

Course Objectives

• Learn how to properly measure a single-family dwelling
• Explore the "Rules" of the ANSI Measurement Standard
• Examine the measurement of stairs, upper levels, rooms with sloped ceilings; and reveal the proper method to report above & below "grade" living areas
• Define GLA or Gross Living Area and the need for one language of real estate for all real estate professionals
• Identify the typical or standard width used in estimating the thickness of walls, creating exterior dimensions from interior measurements
• Discuss the significance of accurate square footage calculations over all CMA's and appraisals
• Discover how the different square footage totals reported within MLS and public records influences home values and better understand the extraordinary power of "MLS" over the national housing market
• Learn more about AVMs, Public Records, and the current information crisis within the real estate industry
• Uncover the "how to create" and the "why it matters" of residential square footage