Realtors, could you be sued over this?!?

by | Jun 13, 2021 | Real Estate Marketing Minute

One of the most common E&O claims in New Mexico is inaccurate square footage. Are you doing everything you can to  protect yourself and your business?

Hey everyone, I’m Pete Stagl with Servant 360°, if you’re new here, we share tips and strategies that help Realtors, just like you, sell more houses, faster and for more money. Make sure to like and subscribe to always be notified when we release these weekly videos!

If you have three people measure the square footage of a house, you’re likely to get three different numbers. There’s many different reasons why, from different tools used, different measurement points (interior and exterior), when and who measured the space. 

There are a number of different ways you can get the square footage for your listing.

You can use tax records or previous listing data. But did you know that up until 1996, there wasn’t a nationwide standard for measuring square footage in single family homes? Who knows where they came up with those numbers!

You could use the builder’s floor plan, that should be a correct number right? Except, those are pre construction drawings produced by the design and marketing teams, the property didn’t even exist yet! 

Of course you could measure it yourself! Get out your handy dandy 100 foot tape measure and climb around bushes, and write it all down on a piece of paper. But just like math class back in school, regardless of whether you got the right answer or not, if you don’t show your work, you won’t get credit for it! If you don’t have a floor plan with all the measurements you took and an explanation of how you arrived at the square footage total, you’re taking on a ton of liability!

Now the best way to get the square footage of your listing is to hire a professional service provider. They’ll go through and measure the property using a standard method of measurement, providing measurements and drawings of the actual as-built space in a concise report.

At Servant 360°, we utilize the latest technology to measure square footage and generate floor plan drawings. Following the ANSI Z765 measurement standard and laser accurate measurement tools, our floor plans and measurements have a margin of error of about .5% 

While the accuracy of the square footage can keep you out of hot water, our beautifully drawn floor plans are great assets for marketing your listing as well! Did you know that in the 2021 NAR Trends report, buyers ranked floor plans 3rd in a list of most useful information about a listing.

Protect yourself and help market your listing by adding floor plans to your marketing plan.If you liked this video hit the like button and don’t forget to subscribe so you get notified when we release new videos just like this.Take a moment and let us know down in the comments what questions you have about marketing your real estate business!

Thanks for watching and as always, it’s our pleasure to serve!

At Servant 360° we provide real estate marketing media and strategies that help Realtors, just like you, sell more houses, faster and for more money.

Need to book your new listing? Check out our great packages and schedule online here.

2 Comments

  1. Alma

    Hi, what do you charge to measure a home? Thank you m.