In Texas, how is Livable Square Footage calculated for a Brick House?
1) Outside using the brick LxW?
2) Inside LxW?
3) Sum of Each room Inside LxW?
Thanks

No idea how hcad does it because every appraisal I've gotten on homes I've owned have ended up being 75-100 ft bigger than the sq footage on the tax roll. Which with todays price per sq ft can add up

HCAD doesn't enter your house so they use exterior wall measurements. Appraisers will use interior wall.

Houses are usually smaller when appraisers measure.

Yea I assumed that, owned a heights home listed at 1081 sq ft and appraisal came back at 1200 and the. The current home is tax rolled at 2953 and appraisal was 3077.

It's a fairly imperfect system when using cad appraisal for real estate comps but I guess the thought it that they'll be consistently incorrect about sizes.

My home has changed size 3 times since I moved in, according to HCAD. I haven't done a thing to the footprint.

"HCAD doesn't enter your house so they use exterior wall measurements. Appraisers will use interior wall.

Houses are usually smaller when appraisers measure."

Oof. Appraiser measurements are taken from the exterior on single family homes. Always.

CAD can be off because they're estimated off aerial images, given the wrong plans/specs at construction, or no permits were pulled on additions. I've seen some wild stuff.

Appraisers can vary because one can round up, one can round down. But the variance shouldn't be great on accurate measurements. That's the key.

Difficult, large, homes will probably have a greater delta because a couple inches difference can impact things greatly.

ANSI standards are going to be mandatory beginning next month in the appraisal business which should eliminate most rounding variances but no two measurements will ever be exact.

is that right? the sketches always appear to be interior. learn something new every day.

I can't explain the variance then

Thanks for all the input

I can tell you that the appraisal district in B/CS measured exterior for the house, but we were outside on the driveway with the garage opened when they stopped by and they asked if they could step inside the garage to get accurate measurements of it. If garage space is valued at a lower amount than the main living space, that helps me out because my garage is larger than it appears from the exterior.

Grimes CAD measures from the exterior. I've gone to them asking for it to be adjusted to the ACTUAL square footage and they've refused. Highway robbery. When I sell it, I don't get to calculate the square footage from exterior measurements.

AgProgrammer said:

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Grimes CAD measures from the exterior. I've gone to them asking for it to be adjusted to the ACTUAL square footage and they've refused. Highway robbery. When I sell it, I don't get to calculate the square footage from exterior measurements.

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but you kinda do

AgProgrammer said:

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Grimes CAD measures from the exterior. I've gone to them asking for it to be adjusted to the ACTUAL square footage and they've refused. Highway robbery. When I sell it, I don't get to calculate the square footage from exterior measurements.

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I always have gotten an appraisal and it's been bigger than the appraisal district and I always use the appraisal number.

If the tax appraisal number is bigger why wouldn't you use the bigger number? That just seems dumb. It's an imperfect number, just use the bigger number

You can ask the appraisal district for their sketch. I did it to figure out how they were off. Apparently, they just estimated since they couldn't get close to the house because of landscaping. Well that extra two feet on all sides really added up. Only helped me for one year though.

They can appraise the exterior a tiny shack with a massive underground secret bunker, if they want to play games.

Most Appraisers measure from exterior.