Tip of the Week – Room Dimensions

Posted on July 17, 2012 by admin_ecar

Just how important are room dimensions to the home buying process, anyway? Does anyone actually use that information? Well, I can tell you from personal experience, YES!

When my kids were almost teenagers, I moved into a different neighborhood. Since I have a boy and a girl, they had to have their own rooms. And since they were almost teenagers, I knew that a fight over the larger room would shortly ensue. Giving the boy who is older the larger room does not work with the red-headed girl. So it was very important that the rooms be pretty much the same size.

So having the room dimensions on the listing really helped. Now the question is what would be the best way to enter the dimensions in the room chart when you’re inputting the listing.

There’s a few different ways you can do that. You can round down (always down) to the near foot measurement, you use the period/decimal to indicate the measurements (10.5 for example), or you use the apostrophe to indicate feet and inches, such as 10’5.

What do you do if you have a small room with only one number as the dimension? Do you have to enter two characters for each side, like 08×09? The answer to that question is No. In fact, doing that could actually cause more problems than it solves.

We have a search set up in the automatic citation system that checks the room dimensions for things like 0×0 and other similar work-arounds which, by the way, are against the MLS rules. If you enter a room dimension like 08×09, the system may mark your listing as being in violation because of the leading zero.

My recommendation is to use simply 8×9 instead. Sweet, simple, and to the point.

If you have any questions, please call us at 850-244-2411, or email susan@ecaor.com.

Susan Beck, MLS Director
Emerald Coast Association of REALTORS
Fort Walton Beach, FL