From liability protection to lack of standardization, in most cases, you will not find the square footage represented on a residential house listing.

Many prospective home buyers, particularly those transferring in from outside of Illinois, ask why the residential MLS listings in the Chicago real estate market do not quote square footage numbers. These buyers like to have a bulk square footage number on which to make a comparison between homes they are considering to buy. Moreover, these buyers may have come from other areas of the United States where the offering of square footage information was a basic expectation. Here’s why you do not see it here in the western suburban real estate market of Chicago:

• Liability. Home sellers and their real estate agents are concerned about being sued. A misrepresentation of square footage could be grounds for a law suit. The easy way out is simply not to make a representation.
• Lack of standardization. The most respectful users of square footage tend to be real estate appraisers. Basically, they define square footage as heated, finished living areas that 100% above grade. Clearly, this does not include finished basements (arguably an area that should be included?). However, it does include finished third floors (should this area be discounted if it’s functionality is reduced by something like lower, angled ceilings?)
• Even assessors disagree. Some of the local assessors offices (see links below) include third floors areas, some do not. There are even discrepancies within assessor’s own offices where property A’s third floor will have it’s area included and property B’s third floor will not.
• Municipality’s Building Departments add to the confusion. Again, a case here where there are varying definitions of what is living area/square footage. For example, Hinsdale IL says that if there is a finished walkout basement, 50% of that area is countable as overall square footage.
• Bad Information. The reliability of the data sources tends to denigrate as the building ages. For example, many older buildings have had some form of structural addition. If a permit was not pulled, no entity has a record of the size of the addition. Moreover, in building types like Cape Cods which have severely steep second floor walls, there are sometimes renovations which bump up the roof line by way of a dormer addition, but do not change the second floor foot print. While the usable square footage of the second floor definitely increases, the permit-issuing body may classify this as "internal" and not modify the recorded square footage.

House-hunting tip. If you have an interest in making an apples-to-apples comparison among houses by use of a square footage comparison, get to know the subtleties of the local custom. And these subtleties vary from town to town. Additionally, if your realtor does not have command of the knowledge of square footage, you can either get one you does or hire a local appraiser to counsel you through the process.

If you have any questions about this topic, please contact me by e-mail.

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