We made an offer on a house and when the appraisal came back the square footage listed on the MLS site is almost 900 sq ft more than the appraiser showed in the report. We have contacted our Realtor who is not the listing agent but with holiday weekend she has not got back to us. Of course we will listen to her advice but, just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on a good way to deal with this?
If it is to you advantage – say something.
If it hurts your case – say nothing…
Lastly, depends if you want to buy the house and how many people you are competing against.
Dog 
If its worth the money pull the trigger, footage can kill you on resale so I would take that into consideration if you are going to flip it to make a buck. I would put myself in the sellers shoes, if I had another buyer on the line I wouldn’t give a rats a#£ if the listing agency had a typo, they care that the house sells for its maximum dollar, but if there was not another buyer lined up you are in a grand position to negotiate and the seller will probably be all ears and be more than willing to consider offers as the difference in that amount of footage would be very noticeable on an appraisal. The question I would ask the buyer is, “How did the appraiser turn out?” Then adjust accordingly.
Was it finished sq ft vs total sq ft? Sometimes a basement wont count.
It was finished square footage. The basement is unfinished and not included in the calculation.
There is no other buyer that I am aware of. We are not looking to flip it. It is going to be our retirement home.
trust the appraiser..ask the seller to explain
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trust the appraiser..ask the seller to explain
X2
Hopefully it won’t screw up your value too much. Granted it will more than likely benefit you if the seller will relook at the purchase price.
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trust the appraiser..ask the seller to explain
Best advice so far. 900 sq feet is a lot of missing space. As asked before, does it have unfinished basement space? This could be the missing space. Since you won’t hear back from your realtor this weekend most likely, google the county tax records for the county you are purchasing in. Then look up the property and see what they have it listed on. Chances are you won’t be paying taxes on that missing 900. MLS is not always accurate. You for sure do not want to be paying taxes on missing space.
After all that, if you still like the house and it’s what you want and it’s a good price, go for it. The home you love is hard to find.
Thanks everyone for your thoughts. We will be asking the seller to explain the difference.
I looked for the tax records but could not find the square footage listed.
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Thanks everyone for your thoughts. We will be asking the seller to explain the difference.
I looked for the tax records but could not find the square footage listed.
900 sqft on a “typical” home under 3,000 sqft is a huge variance. If your looking at 6,000-7,000 sqft home 900 sqft is VERY common. Not all appraisers, realtor agents, or even contractors calculate sqft the same. Some will take out-side of stud (exterior dimensions), some do face of stud (interior), some include hallways, closets,dead space …others may exclude them.
Since the bank is most interested in the appraisal and could care less on what a realtor listed it as, go with the appraiser’s calculation. But, I would stop the process and have both of them show how they calculated it. If you think you made an offer on a 3,000 sqft home and it’s only 2100, that is almost 30% less space
Randy you hit it right on the head. The MLS listing on the house says 3100 sqft but is only 2200 sqft per the appraiser. We have asked the sellers Realtor to explain the MLS sqft calculation.
I could understand some variance based on where the measurements were taken from but, would think they would be at least within about 10% – 15% of each other.
We will also follow up with the appraiser as to how he got his numbers.
Thanks for the ideas. 
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trust the appraiser..ask the seller to explain
Best advice so far. 900 sq feet is a lot of missing space. As asked before, does it have unfinished basement space? This could be the missing space. Since you won’t hear back from your realtor this weekend most likely, google the county tax records for the county you are purchasing in. Then look up the property and see what they have it listed on. Chances are you won’t be paying taxes on that missing 900. MLS is not always accurate. You for sure do not want to be paying taxes on missing space.
After all that, if you still like the house and it’s what you want and it’s a good price, go for it. The home you love is hard to find.
X2 Check County Tax Records.
Most of these you can easily find online along with other information about the property.
If you are writing up an offer with some contingencies, maybe discuss with your Realtor. Could be a negotiating tool depending on what any sticking points might be along with price.
Good luck Tim let us know how this turns out!
I always thought MLS went by 30×40 foundation, single story would be 1200 sq ? Some take out for closet space ? 
Contractors don’t build closets for free ???
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I always thought MLS went by 30×40 foundation, single story would be 1200 sq ? Some take out for closet space ?
G – compare their listed room sizes Vs. foundation exterior sqft and you will always find a huge discrepancy.Plus, when dealing with any contractor that deals strictly in per sqft, you need to question their accuracy. Yes, some things are calculated that way like siding, roofing, drywall… but in the grand scheme of things, buying a house by the sqft is just like buying a car or truck by the pound. Do you really know what your getting?
Licensed (non practicing) appraiser here. Real estate measurements on a single family home are taken from the outside of the house.
MLS square footage is notoriously high, they’ll include porches sometimes garages. The listing will have the phrase “information deemed reliable but not guaranteed”
The Appraiser actually measured the house.
I’m interested to hear what the listing agent uses as an excuse, I gurandamtee they did not physically measure the perimeter of the house. If it was me I’d renegotiate the offer.
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Licensed (non practicing) appraiser here. Real estate measurements on a single family home are taken from the outside of the house.
MLS square footage is notoriously high, they’ll include porches sometimes garages. The listing will have the phrase “information deemed reliable but not guaranteed”
The Appraiser actually measured the house.
I’m interested to hear what the listing agent uses as an excuse, I gurandamtee they did not physically measure the perimeter of the house. If it was me I’d renegotiate the offer.
http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/home/measure-square-footage2.htm
This is correct. Someone doesn’t know how to measure. 
Muskie Tim, I’ve sold real estate for the last 14 yrs and 900 sq. ft is a HUGE difference. Couple of things, 1st your realtor should be able to explain any variances easily, also a appraiser should have to have 3 different comps, do all of the comps have this much difference, you should also be able to look at the city or county recorders site and pull up the records on the house to see what the city’s sq. ft estimates. Additionally have your realtor do a market on comps of other similar sold homes in the area to see if the selling price is justified as basically that is also what the appraisers job is do not only for you but also the banks underwriting to justify lending you the money to purchase the home.
PS: Any questions at all shot me a email and would be more than glad to help.
Wahly
Okay this is finally straightened out. Listing Realtor claims it was an entry error. After talking with our Realtor, Banker and the appraiser we decided to proceed as they assured us that the property was still a good investment that was not out of line with other properties in the area.
That is the advice that Wahly gave and seemed like a reasonable approach. The house did well against comparable properties in the area and we are happy with the features of the home.
Thanks everyone for your input. We also requested that the listing Realtor correct the listing for historical purposes.
Wahly special thanks to you 
Now to get the closing behind us, get settled and start fishing! 
Awesome congrats on your new home Tim!
Do you have a link to the listing you would like to share and show off your new home?
Here are a few photos.
Muskie Tim, Glad to have helped, you did good by getting every body on board and especially making sure the house comped out, congrats on your new home.
PS: BTW very nice looking pictures of your new home you posted…
Don’t mortgage companies demand 3 comps ? Did you have to “ask” for them ?
There were three comps on the appraisal, I did not have to ask for them. Our realtor also gave us 5 comps when we first got interested in the the house. Interestingly there was no overlap between the Relator supplied comps and the appraiser ones. So we had 8 comps to use. That was helpful.
big G, yes you are correct, underwriters for mortgage companies require 3 comps for a loan and 1 must be only 6 months old with the other 2 no more than 12 months and if your on the buying side they have to provide you the full appraisal by law. As Muskie Tim stated his realtor provided 5 comps and thats good. In a normal transaction I can pull 5 to 12 comps and pick the best 3 to compare apples to apples on a property. With a unique property this may be difficult so we have to get creative, also if you are a cash buyer you can choose to wave the appraisal and in that case any good realtor can provide enough comps to justify the price, hope that helps.
Wahly
Nice view and house.
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