The magic of knowing exact square footage

When you’re looking at condo listings online, one of the first things you probably want to know is how big a unit is – and how much you’ll be paying per square foot. But most real estate websites don’t give you that info, or they only provide a range like 500-599 square feet. (For a smaller unit, that’s a pretty big range!) 

So unless the seller’s agent includes that information in the listing description, it can be hard to figure out – especially when wide-angle photos make the place look bigger than it actually is. 

So how do you get an exact number?

You sign up for an account on condos.ca! That gives you full  access to the exact size of the unit, plus a lot more info, like at-a-glance cost per square foot, comparisons to other units in the building, historical price-per-square foot averages in the building, average maintenance fees per square foot, and more. 

Read more: 6 reasons to sign up to condos.ca

Using price-per-square foot info to determine value

A million dollars for a condo may seem like a lot. But when you know the exact square footage, you can figure out value pretty easily. Paying $1M for 1,200 square feet is a way better deal than shelling that out for 700. 

Condos.ca also lets you compare average price per square foot to all the other buildings in the area. You can see where a building ranks (the example below puts 18 Yonge St Condos 266th out of 441 condo buildings in the downtown area). It shows you the average for the building itself, and also where it falls in comparison to the area – this one is 1.3% lower than the average price per square foot in the neighbourhood. 

Condos.ca also shows you how average price per square foot differs based on unit type, so if you’re trying to decide if a 2-bedroom is a better value than a 1+, you can see that too. 

Read more: 5 cool tech tools to help you buy a condo

Accurate square footage also helps when looking at maintenance fees

Maintenance fees are calculated based on the size of your unit. So while a $700 for a 500 square foot unit might seem like a better deal than $950 for a place that’s 1,000 square feet, once you do the math, you’ll realize you’re actually paying a lot more for the smaller property. Condos.ca makes it easy to figure that out – and also see how much a building’s monthly fees have gone up over time.