The HomeDiary (and FloorPlanOnline) FloorPlan Engine is the most advanced floor plan tool available by any virtual tour company. It allows for real-time editing of the floor plan by us or you, and a copy is transferred to the buyer (and seller) as part of our Claim Home process. We are now providing a detailed Area Report with every full service floor plan created using one of our approved scanning methods – Matterport with a Pro or 360 camera, or iGuide. The Area Report details the living, nonliving and garage and exterior spaces drawn and measured and complies with the ANSI Standard for drawing floor plans. These are requirements in order to count a space as “living” space under the ANSI Standard:
- The ceiling needs to have a height of 7 feet for 50% or more of the room
- Any area under 5 ft in height is excluded as living area
- Needs to be finished and conditioned, like the rest of the home
- Needs to be above grade – above the ground. So a walk out basement that is finished is technically not part of the GLA
If a space does not meet these parameters, it is excluded from the Gross Living Area (“GLA”). It can still be considered heated living space, it is just not part of the GLA. So, if you have a completely finished walkout basement, it is excluded from GLA but it is included in the heated living area. Local practices dictate how things are reported when you list.
When we produce the floor plan, we create the Area Report – it is a manual process as we go through each level, each space, to make sure the boundaries of the living and nonliving areas are correct, and then we generate the report. We push a button that creates the PDF report. We then upload that PDF as a document to the tour.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Given you can make edits to the floor plan, if you do, then the Area Report we created will not be updated automatically. You can update it, you can simply remove it from display on the tour by removing the document, or contact us and we can update it for you.
Here is a video on how to edit the floor plan and update the Area Report yourself.