ODB wrote:
Hi all,

I have been looking at a house, they are quoting it as 20 metres/or 20
sqaures.

I always get confused how this is calculated for the purposes of changing
the floor.

It is a decent size single storey house, lounge room is 5m x 5m, 3 bedrooms
3x3, kitchen plus 2 bathrooms.

Are the hallways and bathroom/kitchen included in that 20?

Can anyone shed light on how these realtors work?

Thanks!



Really, the safest thing to do is to ask a local realtor what the local
law (or custom) dictates for such measurements and to try to get the
answer in writing. I puzzled for a bit and came to no firm conclusions
about what the 20 squares might mean. Clearly the lounge at 5 X 5 covers
25 square meters so the fallback (as I imagine it anyway) is that the
area of the home is listed as equivalent to a 20 X 20 square or 400
square meters and that would suggest a very generously dimensioned home
for three bedrooms (3600 square feet for the metrically obtuse reader).

Locally in the US there seems to be two schools of thought on what area
measurements really mean, perhaps more if you get into rounding
procedures. Most realtors will simply say that the area they quote is
"finished" space but that is vague enough to allow many interpretations.
Does it mean the sum of the areas of all rooms? Where does that leave
the hallways and closets and such? Is it the area derived from outside
measurements? Where does that leave the area covered by all of the
inside and outside walls? As if buying a home wasn't confusing enough...

--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com