Agents
Appraisers
Valuers
Architects
Assessors
Adjustors
Builders
Anyone who provides square footage for the public
Welcome to the world of residential square footage.
In April of 2022, Fannie Mae will mandate the use of the ANSI measurement standard for all interior inspection appraisal reports. This is history in the making and a giant leap forward for consumer protection.
This is the first step in bringing together the entire real estate industry and changing the over 100 different names for finished living area into one language of real estate. It’s time for the real estate industry to join the rest of the standardized world.
ANSI is “The Name.” It is known world-wide and offers consumers a level of trust to ensure that the same home purchased in Nashville, New York, or San Francisco will all be measured the same. Since 2003, Hamp Thomas has been promoting the adoption of one nationally mandated measurement standard.
Home Measurement Publications
Here you will find books Hamp has authored and links to the online classes he teaches that delve into the topics of square footage and big data and the world of residential square footage.
Measuring Square Footage with ANSI 2021: Home Measurement Textbook
29.95 - 39.95The "how-to" book for calculating residential square footage in single-family homes. Created for appraisers and agents, and based on the ANSI 2021 measurement standard. Covers all measurement basics, dormers, stairs, upper levels, basements, bay windows, and all measurements for real estate professionals. No office should be without a copy of this guideline. Estimating gross living area based on the most well-known standard in the world today.SelectQuantity
American Measurement Standard - Paperback Edition
22.95The American Measurement Standard® is a voluntary standard for the measurement of residential square footage. For those professionals who choose to provide this service, the AMS® helps to promote the public’s trust, as well as offering a consistent, reliable, reproducible, and defensible source for the methodology utilized in the collection and communication of square footage for single-family dwellings.
The employment of a written “statement of square footage” is encouraged for the advancement of professionalism and consumer protection, by all those that create and communicate residential square footage data. In this, the information age and the era of technology, it is our sincere hope that the real estate industry will embrace the adoption of a universal measurement standard, mandate it, and educate all professionals about the importance of credible living area data. One industry, one standard.Quantity
Home Measurement Standard
49.95The Home Measurement Standard was released in the fall of 2021 and is what Hamp refers to as “ANSI on Steroids.” It is a formal standard of measurement that offers professionals a document for formal disclosures to show how specific measurements are calculated that are not covered within the sixteen pages of the ANSI Standard. For real estate professionals, all books are library learning products and whether you are a thirty-year veteran appraiser or a brand new trainee or agent, this is information that makes you more valuable to your clients. In this day and time, the real estate industry must join the rest of the standardized world. So, welcome to the world of square footage and all the information you need to help you hone your craft.QuantityOnline Continuing Education Courses for Real Estate Appraisers and Agents
Courses authored by Hamp Thomas and offered exclusively through Appraiser eLearning and Agent eLearning.
ANSI, Home Measurement & the Power of Price-Per-Square-Foot
7 Hour Appraiser CE
Created Exclusively for Residential Appraisers
based upon Square Footage-Method for Calculating ANSI.
Public Records, Square Footage & the Real Estate Information Crisis
7 Hour Appraiser CE
Discover the importance of the MLS and Public Records on the future of the entire real estate industry.
Learning Home Measurement
Video Series5 Hour Appraiser CE
Learn the methods and procedures for measuring and calculating square footage in detached single-family dwellings, based upon the ANSI Guidelines.
ANSI, Home Measurement, & the Power of Price-Per-Square-Foot
4 Hour Agent CE - Realtor EditionAn in depth examination of Price-Per-Square-Foot, the one number that provides the currency of real estate
Big Data Big Trouble
5 Hour Agent CE
Square Footage, Public Records & Big Data Myths
Learning Home Measurement Video Series
5 Hour Agent CE
Learn the methods and procedures for measuring and calculating square footage in detached single-family dwellings, based upon the ANSI Guidelines.
Learning Home Measurement Video Series
4 Hour Agent CE
Created to educate students on the differences and misconceptions that exist between real estate brokers and appraisers with respect to their roles in the home valuation process.
Meet Hamp Thomas
AKA "Mr. ANSI"
Hamp Thomas began his appraisal career after working for ten years as a Realtor®. Hamp has promoted the establishment of a mandatory national measurement standard since 2003, believing all real estate professionals must use the same “language” to create and communicate residential square footage. He is the author of multiple publications and CE courses that focus on bringing standardization to the real estate industry.
Hamp teaches numerous appraisal and real estate continuing education classes with Appraiser and Agent eLearning and is a licensed instructor in over thirty states. He is a member of the National Association of Appraisers (NAA) and NCPAC (North Carolina Professional Appraiser’s Coalition). Specialties: Certified Residential Appraiser. Residential square footage expert, who has researched public records, MLS, AVM’s, the appraisal industry and big banking for the last twenty years. Certified Residential Appraiser, CDEI, MNAA, ABR, GRI, PSA, Realtor®. Moore County, NC.
In a Zillow world where real estate values are based on a price-per-square-foot formula, using the square footage details from county tax records. Those tax records are created with zero interior inspections and are inaccurate about 95% of the time. Accurate square footage details are not their goal and not required for their purposes.
The real estate system has been lost. It was created without any clear path for the future and consumers will now pay the price to fix it. Without an industrywide measurement standard, the chances of square footage errors in public records are guaranteed.
Every component of a sf home is measured by a national or international measurement standard. But, once they are combined there is no one standard required by all those who use that data.
It’s time for the real estate industry to join the rest of the standardized world and for agents, appraisers, assessors, and everyone who uses square footage top use the same method and practices, and all of us use the same categories for reporting square footage that allow for fair comparisons and consumer protection.
Consumers deserve to know the fair size of their single, largest, lifetime investments...
The ANSI 2020 update started in early 2020 and in April 2021 we are still waiting on its release. The changes that appear to have been approved and anticipated are minimal at best. Appraisers and agents wrote in asking ANSI about one specific topic where they hoped for a simplification of a measurement in rooms with sloped ceilings. But, the new sketch that appears to be in the standard may be even more complicated and leaves this measurement with the same degree (or perhaps even more) of problems that it had before.
What we hoped to replace with one simple line has been replaced by an expanded text that leaves this measurement even more debatable. Two people can measure it in different ways and both claim adherence to ANSI.
That’s too complex for something that could be easily resolved with one simple Yes or No statement. Either Yes add for the exterior walls, or “NO’ do not add for the width of exterior walls. Something that seems very simple to those who actually take the measurements is being written by home builders who perhaps do not understand the practicality of the measurement. That brings us to the heart of the problem. Many people have talked about this over the years but don’t want to speak it out loud since they have no other measurement “standard” options. Well, now they have a choice, we can say the things out loud that used to be exclusively spoken behind closed doors.
