What is Carpet Area, Built-up area & super built-up area?

As a prospective homebuyer, understanding the terminologies used by real estate agents is vital to avoid costly mistakes that might hamper your chances of getting the right property of your choice. Developers and brokers in India often use the terms – carpet area, built-up area, and super built-up area – that has got many logged on to the internet to look up the definitions. Some unscrupulous companies have exploited this lack of knowledge of buyers to their advantage by charging higher prices. So, you must do your homework before you speak to your agent the next time.

The differences between the three commonly used jargons viz. the carpet area, the built-up area, and the super built-up area:

Carpet area

As the name indicates, a carpet area is an area that can be covered by a carpet. It is the wall to wall distance which makes for the net usable floor area of the house. According to RERA (Real Estate Regulation and Development) Act guidelines, developers must disclose the carpet area of each apartment basis in which the sale price should be calculated. Unlike the built-up area, explained below, this area does not include the area covered by the external walls, balcony or terrace. However, the carpet area, which becomes your personal space includes the thickness of the inner walls of the house.

Generally, carpet area constitutes around 70 percent of the built-up area encompassing the living room, the bedrooms and other rooms, the kitchen, and the bathrooms and even the inner staircases in some cases. For calculating the total carpet area, let us assume you have a built-up area of 1,000 sqft, then the carpet area will be 70 percent off 1,000 sqft, which is equal to 700 sqft.

Built-up area

The built-up area is the comprehensive area which is the sum of the carpet area and the thickness of walls of the housing unit. The area spanned by the balcony or terrace is also counted in this. Mostly, it constitutes about 70 to 80 percent of the super built-up area of the property. It is to be noted that the percentage may vary with the project or the developer. Conversely, an addition of 10 to 15 percent space to the carpet area becomes the built-up area. For calculating the built-up area, let us assume you have a super built-up area of 1,200 sqft, then the built-up area will be 70 or 80 percent of 1,200 sqft which is equal to 840 sqft or 960 sqft while the carpet area will be 588 sqft or 672 sqft.

Built-up area = Carpet area + area of walls + area of the balcony

Super built-up area

The super built-up area is the total sum of the built-up area and the space occupied by common areas like the lobby, staircase, elevator, shafts, clubhouse, etc. Often, developers charge buyers based on this area to cover their cost of construction. Thus, it is referred to as the ‘saleable’ area. Closely related to the super built-up area is the loading factor which is the proportionate share of the common area in an apartment determined by applying a multiplier (1.25) to the carpet area. This amounts to an increase of 25 percent or 30 percent of the total saleable area. Its value is obtained as the difference between the super built-up area and the carpet area. Many developers price the apartment based on the loading factor.

Super built-up area = Carpet Area (1+ Loading Factor)

For calculating the super built-up area, let us assume a developer applied to a load of 25 percent for an apartment with a carpet area of 800 sqft. Then the super built-up area will be 1,000 sqft.

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