Mike Laurie has a great idea that could make him the next great real estate technology millionaire. The problem is, he can't sell it in the U.S. Yet.

Laurie, a professional engineer and former builder, runs The PlanIt Measuring Company, Inc. PlanIt has developed a software that takes square footage calculated by using a laser measuring device (sonar only measures room size, not square footage, he says) and immediately converts it into a CAD floor plan. The floorplan can be attached to a virtual tour, used on a flyer, posted to an agent's MLS listing and personal Web site, and stored for posterity in housing databanks. Unlike a virtual tour that dies with the sale of the house, a floorplan has a number of uses for the homeowner, and is infinitely more readable and understandable than architectural blueprints.

PlanIt also has the potential to profoundly affect the real estate industry in terms of establishing market values. Imagine it as a data field for CMAs, MLS listings, tax rolls, and other commercial and residential records. Already PlanIt has several large organizations sniffing around, but no one has laid a check in his hand so far.

It must be the capital markets, because the demand for consumer-friendly floorplans could potentially apply to every stick-built space on the planet. What buyer or renter or commercial leasing agent doesn't want to know how much space is available? If architectural plans are no longer available, how is this information obtainable?

Consumers want to know square footage, and banks loan money based on a cost-per-square-footage basis, yet no one in the housing industry wants to be accountable for this number. Why? Liability.

No one wants to tell a buyer that the home of their dreams may not be as big as they thought.

Therefore consumers are excluded from knowing with certainty one of the most important numbers of the transaction - how many square feet they are buying/renting. Is that fair?

In the free-wheeling U.S. it is. The U.S. has a standard measuring system called The American National Standard, but in the regulation-averse housing industry, there is room for differences of opinion among practitioners.

Here are a few examples: When a defunct floor furnace is removed and replaced by an attic unit, did the walking area enlarge or not? Should closets be included in square footage? What about open landings at the top of the stairs? When a sloped roof narrows to a two-foot drop in an upstairs bedroom, what is considered measurable living space? When people duck their heads? Or when they bump them? "Anything below seven feet is generally not included," laughs Laurie.

Those questions are why many agents defer square footage to other authorities such as appraisers and tax rolls.

PlanIt, or a product like it, could be the answer to putting the judgement back into the judgement call - if the software conforms to a standard, and users take advantage of disclaimers - that other professionals and their methods may produce different results.

And that's what's causing Laurie to scratch his head - how do you sell a product like this in a litigious society? If the product were rolled out in the U.S., would it be better to license the software to real estate agents like virtual tours? Or would inspectors make better partners? Or should PlanIt remain a third-party service provider?

"In Canada, we are protected through our errors and omissions policy provided through the Professional Engineers Of Ontario, an engineering society," explains Laurie. "We charge $0.06 per square foot ($180 Canadian dollars for a 3,000 square-foot home) to have professional measurements."

Laurie doesn't have the answers yet, but he's working on it and hopes to have a roll-out to the U.S. market soon. He does have a solution in Canada, where fulfilling demand, not worrying about liability is a happier problem.

"We started with one agent, and now we have over 1,000," says Laurie. "What we need are more feet on the street."

Published: September 7, 2001

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