{"id":57055,"date":"2026-02-17T16:29:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T16:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/homediary.com\/pro\/?p=57055"},"modified":"2026-02-25T00:20:58","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T00:20:58","slug":"floorplan-accuracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homediary.com\/pro\/floorplan-accuracy\/","title":{"rendered":"FloorPlan Accuracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Does it Matter?<\/h2>\n

As detailed on our 2025 Research post<\/a>, both buyers and sellers highly value floor plans.\u00a0 But what about floor plan accuracy. Does it matter? Do people care?<\/p>\n

Based on the popularity of some of the “apps” out there, and the lack of accuracy of those floor plans created from those apps, I am not sure. Or do people not know the truth, or the implications of using inaccurate data….?<\/strong><\/p>\n

From my perspective, it should matter.\u00a0 Buying a house is one of the largest transactions most people ever make, and don’t you as the buyer want to know what you are getting, with a high degree of certainty?\u00a0 As the seller, or the marketing agent for the seller, you also do not want to misrepresent the product you are selling.\u00a0 The size impacts the value, and it can also impact the cost of ownership over time.<\/p>\n

Why Accuracy should matter!<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Let me tell you a story of my own personal homeownership experience and why it DOES<\/strong> matter.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

When my family moved to the burbs of Seattle in 2005, we bought a pretty big house – it was listed at 5290 square feet<\/strong> on the listing and in the King County tax record. Yes we bought more than we really needed, but it was on the same street as our good friends so it seemed right. Well, in 2024, we sold that house when we moved to Dallas, and when we listed it, we listed it at 4840 square feet<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Wait. What? Where did 450 square feet go. How did we virtually downsize over 19 years in the same house?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We didn’t. It turns out, the house we thought was 5290 square feet was not that big. The King County Tax Assessor had errored in drawing the foot print and recording of the property, and the listing agent in 2005 just took what the county said<\/strong>, and there you go.<\/p>\n

Based on what I paid for the house, I overpaid by $98,500. Based on what I sold it at, I could have overstated the value by $265,000! However, given the fact I have scanned my house 50+ times with various methods, and I had a true source floor plan generated from a Matterport scan with a Pro2 camera and calibrated with hand laser measurements, I went to King County and got them to change the square footage from what they had it listed at…except now they understated it because when they redrew, they left off some areas like stairs, which should be accounted for on both levels. So, we ended up using the HomeDiary Certified Square Footage Report square footage of 4840 square feet as the listing size.\u00a0 See the report here.<\/a>\u00a0 I am pretty sure this floor plan is 100% accurate as the individual room measurements match my hand laser measured numbers on a room by room basis.<\/p>\n

As you can see in the below screenshot, I overlaid the original King County floor plan foot print with the second floor Matterport scan as a layer. It is clear by this overlapping view,\u00a0 the whole upstairs was overstated with an area that did not exist when you see the Matterport layout scaled exactly with the footprint – the red box area was counted by the county as upstairs living space, but it is basically the roof over the downstairs office.\u00a0 \u00a0Initially, I thought the county had just counted the 2 story open to below foyer as living space as it was a similar square foot area, and I did not have it changed because if they did that consistently for all houses, it would put my house at a disadvantage.\u00a0 It wasn’t until I saw one of our clients with a listing that had the exact same floor plan as my house with smaller total square footage that I took a closer look into why my house was off.\u00a0 Then I discovered the error.\u00a0 Had I fixed it a long time ago, I would have saved over $20,000 in property tax.\u00a0<\/strong> Washington state does not have income tax (yet), but they get you on sales and property taxes!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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So, the correct square footage could have saved me some on the purchase initially perhaps, it could have saved me a lot over the 19 years of ownership in the form of less property taxes, insurance, home warranty (it was more because the house was listed as over 5000 sq ft), etc, etc.., and a floor plan that can be edited, shared, and used in home improvement and visualization has been instrumental in my homeownership journey once we added this feature into the HomeDiary platform.\u00a0 \u00a0We can do the same for your listings and your clients’ and customers’ homes.<\/p>\n

Over the years we also had 3 appraisals, and I had Home Depot, Allstate, Costco, and others come out and they all created floor plans.\u00a0 Why is there no reusable, true source for a floor plan?\u00a0<\/strong> Humm…sounds like a HomeDiary feature opportunity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You can see below, just because a “Home Pro” is doing the measurement does not mean they can or are creating accurate floor plans.\u00a0 The last appraisal of our home had a floor plan that looked nothing like our house, and it was 7% off from actual (middle top row is that appraiser’s floor plan).\u00a0 Every appraisal I have had was different, with the purchase appraisal coming in at around 5000 sq ft, another one at 4798, and this final one being 5161.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Do Consumers Value Accuracy?<\/h2>\n

According to the WAV Group study in 2025<\/a>, buyers do want accurate floor plans as well, and the accuracy not only applies to the overall square footage, but to room dimensions.<\/strong><\/p>\n