Price per Square Foot Calculator

Property is advertised in a bewildering mix of units: a flat in square feet, an apartment abroad in square metres, a plot in square yards or gaj, land in cents or acres. To know whether one is cheaper than another, they must be put on one scale, and the usual scale is price per unit of area. This page converts everything to square feet and square metres, ranks the options and shows by how much each is above the cheapest.

Writing the list

Put one property on each line as four parts separated by commas: a name, the price, the area and the unit. The name may contain commas; the last three parts are always price, area and unit. Units understood are sqft, sqm, sqyd, gaj, cent and acre, with a few common spellings. A line that cannot be read produces an error naming the line, and a unit that is not recognised is explained.

Converting to one unit

Everything is converted to square feet using exact factors: 1 square metre = 10.7639 sq ft, 1 square yard = 9 sq ft, 1 gaj = 9 sq ft, 1 cent = 435.6 sq ft and 1 acre = 43,560 sq ft. The price per square foot is then the price divided by the area in square feet, and the price per square metre is that figure multiplied by 10.7639. Showing both makes it easy to compare with listings in either unit.

A worked example

The sample lists a resale flat for 75,00,000 with 1,100 sq ft, a new flat for 92,00,000 with 95 sq m and a plot for 48,00,000 with 200 sq yd. The new flat’s 95 sq m is 1,023 sq ft, and the plot’s 200 sq yd is 1,800 sq ft. Prices per square foot are 2,666.67 for the plot, 6,818.18 for the resale flat and 8,996.93 for the new flat, which is 96,842 per square metre. The resale flat is 155.7% above the plot and the new flat 237.4% above it. In the dollar example, a condo at 333.33 per square foot is cheaper than a loft at 538.46, which is 61.5% above, and a budget of 3,00,000 buys 900 square feet at the lowest rate.

Compare like with like

The same flat can be described by three different areas. Carpet area is the floor you can lay a carpet on, inside the walls. Built-up area adds the walls and balconies. Super built-up area adds a share of the lobbies, stairs and amenities. The difference can be 20 to 40 percent, so a flat quoted on super built-up area looks cheaper per square foot than the same flat on carpet area. Use the same measure for every property in the list, and ask for the carpet area of each.

What the number does not show

Price per area ignores location, floor, view, age, parking, amenities and legal title, all of which affect price. A cheaper rate may reflect an older building, a distant area or a smaller plot with no frontage. Use the ranking to spot a surprising difference and ask why, and never to decide alone. The budget line is a rough guide to how much space your money buys, not a promise that such a property exists.

Edge cases

A price of zero is allowed for a plot you already own and wish to compare, but an area of zero is rejected. Decimal areas work. Very large areas, such as acres, produce small per-foot figures, which is correct. The first property in the list is not special; the page ranks all of them.

Limits

The page does not know market rates or check the figures, and does not account for taxes and registration. Land measures vary by region, and some local units differ from the standard factors used here, so check the definition your seller uses.

Related tools

• Rental Yield Calculator shows what the same property earns as a rental.
• Stamp Duty Calculator adds the registration costs that come on top of the price.
• Unit Converter converts areas and other measures between systems.
• Percentage Calculator helps check the percentage differences between prices.