Why two “₹ per square foot” figures for the same street can both be correct

Four measurements, one label

A flat's price per square foot is only meaningful next to the measurement it was divided by. Carpet area is the floor you can actually walk on inside the walls. Built-up area adds the thickness of internal and external walls. Super built-up area adds a share of common areas — lobbies, staircases, lifts — and is the figure developers most often quote, because it is the largest.

The gap between them is not small. On a typical apartment the same flat can be quoted at one rate on carpet area and a visibly lower rate on super built-up area, with the total price unchanged. Neither figure is dishonest; they are answers to different questions. A comparison that mixes them is not a comparison.

Land behaves differently again. A plotted or agricultural holding is measured by extent, and what sits on it is described separately. Dividing the price of an acre by a built-up rate tells you nothing, because the value is in the land and the approvals attached to it, not the structure.

What we publish, and what we do not net down

The footprint on a holding page is the area recorded in our file for that asset. We show it as recorded, and we do not convert it to another basis, because a conversion is an assumption: it depends on wall thickness, common-area share and how the developer measured, none of which we can verify for a building we did not build.

That is why the rate we show is described as implied by the published guide value and the recorded area — arithmetic, not an appraisal. Where a holding carries a range as its guide value, the rate is shown as a range for the same reason.

Where the guide value is released on request rather than published, no rate is shown at all. Dividing a withheld number by a public one would republish it in disguised form, which defeats the point of withholding it.

The question to ask before you compare

Ask which measurement each figure was divided by, and whether the figure includes registration, stamp duty and GST or sits before them. Two properties can differ by fifteen per cent on paper purely because one quote was all-in and the other was not.

Ask too whether the comparable actually sold or is merely asking. Asking prices are set by sellers; sale prices are set by negotiation, and the gap between them is the single most common reason a buyer's estimate disappoints them at the registry office.