What are Gross and Net Square Meters?
In the past, 1+1 apartments were not preferred so much due to thoughts that it would not meet the demand of a family. The most popular apartment types were 2+1 and 3+1. Also, 4+1 apartments were not common either. Checking out the houses built in those years between 1970-2000, almost all of them fits into these statements.
Buyers usually set prices based on number of rooms regardless of all other criteria like square meters. Either they did not know what the gross square meters and net square meters were, or they did not care of.
As market prices began to be calculated based on the apartments’ square meters, the gap between gross and net square meters increased every year. Increasing land and construction costs in Istanbul’s real estate market, unfair competition and the lack of a serious legal regulation on this field cause the gap between gross and net square meters to increase. Needless to say that problems arise when customers don’t make their own gross and net calculations.
Many companies have tried to sell apartments over a net square meter for years. Moreover, the net accounts were very straight. According to this calculation, net area of an apartment consists of the living areas, balconies and terraces. After that, the companies started to make sales based on gross square meters which easily could be manipulated. They blow up the gross square meters over and over to increase the price and it creates an unfair competition, even a fraud against customers. Therefore, that creates a need of a common language on gross and net square meters. The gross and net square meters should not change according to the company, the location, or the project in different locations of the same company in order to prevent unfair competition in the sector and ease in expertise work and doing mortgage.
As CCT Investments, we provide our customers with full information about gross and net square meters of all apartments.
The gross and net of an apartment must be divided into 4 in itself.
1) External gross: The share that an apartment takes from the total construction site. The share of total construction area including parking lot, warehouse and social facilities is added.
2) Internal gross: The share that allocated from a floor. The share allocated from elevator, stair, ventilation gaps and corridors.
3) External net: The sum of all the exterior walls of the apartment. Balconies and terraces are included.
4) Internal net: The sum of all livable areas of the apartment. Bathrooms,kitchens, toilets, balconies and terraces are included.
Similar measures like above can be improved. It is important to evaluate all the projects and apartments knowing the criteria and calculations. The customer should always know what s/he is about to buy, s/he should never leave it to the sales representatives conscious or mercy.