This is what is wrong in the real estate/appraisal industry, there are many instructors giving "their opinion" rather than teaching good appraisal practice. If you are teaching students to ignore GLA, you are setting YOURSELF up for a law suite. If you have been teaching for 17 years and wrote three books, then you don't have a lot of practical experience. If you don't know how to measure a structure, go to: http://www.ncrec.state.nc.us/brochures/main.htm and direct your students there also. We are not architects, the measurements we take are rounded, they are not precise, but they are close, and we say-so in our reports, or we should be saying something like, "all measurements are approximate and are not to scale". This is a unit of comparison, along with other units of comparison. Comparing the 1800/sf dwelling to the 1920/sf dwelling may not necessitate an additional bed room, but may afford additional functional utility. Instead of asking a consumer, ask a PRUDENT purchaser which house they would have, providing everything else is equal including the price, the 1800/sf dwelling or the 1920/sf one. You can not tell the size of a dwelling just by eye-balling it, you MUST measure it to determine its size. So(unless building plans are available) to determine its size by measuring, don't you think it would be prudent to teach students to measure structures correctly? You demean the intelligence of all real estate agents by saying it would be "way over their heads to attempt any such measurements". It may be over your head, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to measure a home, but is does require a little thinking and knowledge as to what is considered GLA and what is not; this is what real estate agents and appraisers want to/must know. I think you should rethink your rational on this subject before you get yourself or someone else in trouble.

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