A house’s square footage is an important factor in determining the price of a home you’re trying to buy or sell. Additionally, how much you’ll pay in taxes if you live there and what kinds of renovations are possible in your future.
Since most Kenyans don’t know how to measure, here’s what you’ll need to know to ace any square footage calculations.
How to calculate square feet
You probably know how to calculate the square footage of a simple room without any funny shapes. Just take out your measuring tape get its length and width. Multiply the width by the length. Hence, you’ll have the square footage. Say a room is 20 feet wide by 13 feet long, then 20 x 13 = 260 square feet.
How to calculate the square footage of an entire home
While measuring a single room is no big deal, people get kind of intimidated when it comes to calculating the square footage of an entire home.
Don’t worry if a room has an outcropping. Simply break that area down into a smaller box, and measure each box individually. Add up each box’s square footage to get the room’s total area. So if your living room, bedroom, bathroom, and hallway are 500, 400, 200, and 100 square feet respectively, that means the total is 500 + 400 + 200 + 100 = 1,200 square feet total.
If you have a round kitchen and a triangular living room, fear not. Just research online on how to calculate square feet no matter what polygon’s thrown your way.
Take the square foot calculation with a grain of salt
Now that you know how to calculate the square footage of a home, it’s time to bust your bubble with a big fact: A calculation is surprisingly subjective based on who’s doing the measuring.
For instance, you measured the actual, livable square footage between the interior walls. But many architects use their own square foot calculation method, measuring from the exterior walls. This explains why there are often inconsistencies between your square foot calculations and those of a real estate agent, builder, or other sources.
Many real estate agencies require a listing’s square footage to come from a specific source. So while you can make your own estimate, you may need to hire a certain professional to come up with a number that can be used on your listing; check with Kenya Homes to help.