Floor plans and room measurements: how to list rooms accurately

The room list is one of the most-read parts of a listing and one of the least checked. Sizes get copied from the last listing, taken from a builder’s brochure, or read off a floor plan that was drawn before the walls moved. Then a buyer’s furniture doesn’t fit, or a buyer’s agent measures the primary bedroom at 11 by 12 when you listed 13 by 15. Most of that is avoidable with a consistent method.

Why accuracy matters here

Ontario’s Code of Ethics says that in carrying on business a registrant must make best efforts to ensure that any representations are accurate and are not misleading. RECO’s advertising bulletin describes a misleading statement as one that causes someone to have a wrong idea or impression, and notes that not every reader has to be misled for it to count. A room size that is a few inches off is not the concern. A room listed as a bedroom at 8 by 8 that is really a den, or a basement figure that includes the furnace room, is the kind of thing that leaves the wrong impression.

I found no official Ontario standard for how to measure a room or count square footage, so this post doesn’t offer one. What it offers is a method you can apply the same way on every listing. For the definitions your board uses for each field, read the field’s help text on the board’s form, and ask your brokerage whether it has a measuring policy.

Measure the same way every time

• •Measure at floor level from finished wall to finished wall, at the longest and widest points of the usable space. A laser measure is faster and more repeatable than a tape.
• •Record length by width, in the same order, in one unit. Pick feet and inches or metres for the whole listing and don’t mix them.
• •Write feet and inches the way a plan prints them, 14’1”, rather than a decimal like 14.08. A decimal looks precise and is already a little wrong.
• •Round to the inch, or to the nearest few centimetres if you work in metric. Don’t round up to the next foot.
• •Measure each room once and write it down on site. Typing sizes from memory the next day is where most errors come from.

Odd shapes, closets and alcoves

Rooms are not always rectangles. A consistent rule matters more than which rule you pick:

• •L-shaped rooms: give the main rectangle’s dimensions and note the extension in the description, for example “plus 4 x 6 nook”.
• •Bay windows and alcoves: measure the room without the bay and mention the bay, so the size matches the floor space a buyer can furnish.
• •Closets: leave a walk-in closet out of the bedroom’s size and say it’s there. A reach-in closet is part of the wall, not part of the room.
• •Sloped ceilings and half storeys: say so. A finished attic with a low ceiling is not the same space as a room with full-height walls.
• •Irregular lots: PropTx’s MLS Rules require an irregular residential lot to be reported with its frontage and the smaller dimension of the depth, with irregular as the lot shape. The same habit of reporting the conservative figure is sensible for rooms.

Square footage: pick a source and name it

Total square footage is where listings disagree most. A builder’s plan, a municipal record, a measured figure and an appraiser’s number can all differ for the same house, depending on whether they count the basement, the garage, stairwells or wall thickness. Don’t blend them. Pick one source, enter that figure, and name the source in the field your board provides for it.

• •Say whether the figure is above grade, below grade or total. If your board asks for a square footage range, check which figure it bases the range on before you pick one, and don’t put the finished basement into an above-grade number.
• •If you measured, say so. If it came from a builder’s plan or a prior listing, say that instead.
• •If you haven’t verified a figure, leave it out of the headline of the remarks and tell the seller why.
• •Keep the figure consistent across the MLS entry, the feature sheet and your marketing. A buyer who sees 1,850 on one and 2,000 on another will believe neither.

Using a floor plan

A floor plan is a good way to cross-check your measurements, and buyers like it. PropTx’s MLS Rules allow floor plans among the listing images (Article 5), so upload it alongside the photos.

• •Check the plan against the house before you trust it. Renovations, a removed wall or a finished basement make older plans wrong.
• •Compare three or four rooms with your own measurements. If they disagree by more than a few inches, find out why before you copy anything off the plan.
• •Plans often print dimensions to interior or exterior walls. Know which, and don’t mix a plan’s figures with your own for the same house.
• •Label the source in your notes. “Per builder’s plan, not measured” is a fine thing to write down.

A pre-submission check

• •Every room has a level, a length and a width in the same unit.
• •Every room called a bedroom meets whatever your board and brokerage require of one, and a den or office is listed as that.
• •Bathroom piece counts match the fixtures you saw.
• •Square footage has a named source and a clear above-grade or total label.
• •Rooms are listed floor by floor, so a second-floor bedroom doesn’t sit next to a basement one.

Frequently asked questions

How Listing Launchpad handles floor plans and room sizes

Listing Launchpad was built so the room list is filled from a source rather than typed twice, and so the figures stay the same wherever they appear.

• •Typing sizes from memory: upload a floor plan PDF or image and the scan builds the Rooms list, each room with its level and dimensions in feet and inches, ordered floor by floor from the top down, bedrooms first. It counts bathroom pieces from the fixtures drawn. Review the rooms before you rely on them, since a scan reads the drawing and not the house.
• •Square footage left blank: the scan fills the square footage if that field is empty, and the board’s Square Footage Range follows from the footage while you haven’t typed one yourself.
• •Decimal drift: dimensions are stored in feet and inches exactly as a plan prints them, and a listing can switch between Imperial and Metric without the figures drifting.
• •Overwriting your own edits: scanning again asks before it replaces a room list you have edited.
• •Plans that arrive from the vendor: a vendor booked through Media Day for floor plans delivers to the Floor plans tab, and a plan that arrives that way is scanned into the room list.

Floor plan scanning is part of listing import, included on every plan, Free included. A floor plan import uses 2 AI copy generations. Media Day is on every plan too.