If you are planning to buy an apartment or house from a developer in India, you are very likely to come across the terms: carpet area, built-up area and super area. What is carpet area? What is built-up area or covered area? What is super built-up area or saleable area? How is the difference between carpet area, built-up area and super built-up area?
Understanding the meaning of carpet area, built-up area and super area, and also knowing the difference between these common real estate jargons is important for a prospective homebuyer to make an informed decision.
Interestingly, the current practice of selling new properties on the basis of ambiguous super built-up area will come to an end when the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 is implemented. The new real estate law clearly defines carpet area, which will be the basis of pricing. All new real estate projects will have to be priced on the basis of the carpet area.
1. Carpet Area
The carpet area of an apartment or a house is the total area inside the confines of the walls, excluding the inner walls’ area. It is the actual usable space inside an apartment, office, house, etc. Generally, sales agents of developers wrongly include the interior and exterior walls in carpet area calculation to make a house look bigger. Though you cannot place a carpet in washrooms and wet areas, these area also counted towards the carpet area of an apartment//house.
2. Built-up Area / Covered Area
The built-up area of a house is the total area of the house, including the outer and inner walls, balconies and any other area under direct control of the house owner. Simply put, the entire portion of an apartment or house that is covered by a roof is known as the built-up area or covered area.
3. Super built-up Area
The super built-up area comprises the built-up area and the common-use areas such as lobby, staircases, covered parking, corridors and lifts proportionately divided among the flats based on the size of the residential unit.
Let us say there are ten apartments in a complex. Of these, five have a built-up area of 1,000 Sq Ft and the other five have a built-up area of 2,000 Sq Ft. The cumulative built-up area of all ten units is 15,000 Sq Ft. In the complex, the common usable area totals 17,500 Sq Ft, which means 1.166 Sq Ft (17,500 % 15,000) of common area per unit square foot of built-up area. So, the super built-up areas for the two unit types will be 2,166 Sq Ft (1000 Sq Ft + 1,000 Sq Ft x 1.166) and 4,333 Sq Ft.