How to calculate home square foot real estate?
What Gotchas should I be aware of?  A little advice would go a long way right now.

Big  “Gotcha”:  LAWSUIT. Disputes over square footage are one of the biggest reasons for trips to the courthouse in real estate. Justifiably so.  Say you buy your house for $300,000, you are told it’s 2200 square feet. Two years pass, you sell, get a buyer, that buyer hires an appraiser surprise surprise turns out your home is only 2100 square feet. Depending on the statute of limitations, you could sue both the seller you bought from and also perhaps your realtor. That’s why smart agents (and homeowners) only measure rooms for furniture, not legal square footage.

“Realtors have to document the source of their square footage,” says veteran appraiser Brad Edgar.

The documentation usually comes from the tax rolls, house plans or a certified appraiser who bears the responsibility.  CYA.

Dallas is a serious square footage town.  In some parts of the country, folks are more concerned with number of bedrooms or other attributes. But in Dallas, house size counts. That’s how we pay and no one likes to get shortchanged. (Don’t get me started on my soapbox of how real estate is a local story: call this reason number 999 why you cannot have an agent in Timbuktu sell you a home in Dallas.)

My advice: Find $150, the cost of an average home appraisal, and hire a certified appraiser who will take the legal heat in the rare event an error is made in calculating the square footage of your largest investment, your home. And keep a copy of that in your security deposit box at the bank.

Indeed!

Was that the home where a snake greeted me one morning?

Ilyce Glink has a great overall take on this, but here’s what I suggest you look out for in Texas:

1. Wade through the information to find and contact the listing agent. This can be tricky, and even I have been fooled: the point of the website is to reel you into one of their agents — the point of the Dallas Morning News’ new deal with Sawbuck –so the listing agent’s name is often buried way low or in some cases. MIA. The listing agent should have direct knowledge that the listing is active and could also have lowered the sales price that very day, but not yet posted the new price.

2. Always check the tax appraisal on the home at www.dcad.org. This will take longer, but you can call to see if the taxes are paid. In Texas, the state can foreclose on your home for failure to pay property taxes.

3. Do a Google search of the addressto see if the home was once the headquarters of the Branch Davidians, or something. You can also check the history of ownership at DCAD. In Texas, sellers must reveal if a violent death has occured in a home. Death by natural causes does not need to be reported.

4. Of course you will use Google maps to get a satellite view of the street and surrounding area, but remember those maps may not be up to date even for rural properties. An owner once told me that he checked on his property down near Ennis using Google, and everything seemed to be dandy. Then he went down there to find squatters using his property to dump garbage — huge heaps that were visible from the air.

3. Always check to see if the property is subject to a Home Owner’s Associationand what dues are required, if any. If dues are required, the association will have more control over your property and hence, life.

4. Obvi you drive by the home, not just once but several times a day. The minute a rainstorm hits, you go check out that home for water leaks and drainage. Do the ground water “sniff test” of the interior. Foundation and drainage problems can be repaired, but you do want to know what you are getting into before signing on the dotted.

Anything else I did not cover?