How to read a price per square metre without being misled

Price per square metre looks like the most objective number in a property listing. It is a division: price over area. The problem is the denominator, because Venezuela has no single definition of area and each portal uses whichever one suits it.

The three areas you will meet

Construction area, or gross area. Everything the property occupies, including walls, columns and sometimes a share of corridors and common areas. It is the largest of the three and the one that makes price per square metre look lowest.

Sellable area, or private area. What sits inside your front door. This is the one Suelo's reports use, when the agent declares it.

Habitable area. Sellable area minus terraces, balconies and storage. Almost nobody publishes it in Venezuela, but it shows up in formal valuations.

Between the first and the third there can be a 25% difference on the same apartment. A property listed at US$1,000 per m² on gross area and another at US$1,250 on sellable area can be exactly the same apartment at exactly the same price.

What is almost never in the denominator

Parking spaces and storage units are sold with the apartment and add to the price, but they do not add to the area. Two identical apartments, one with two parking spaces and one with none, will show different prices per square metre even though the residential square metre is worth the same. In areas where a parking space trades in five figures, that is not a detail.

The same goes for terraces. A 30 m² terrace may be inside the declared area, outside it, or counted at 50%, depending on who is listing.

How to compare without fooling yourself

1. Compare within the same area. Price per square metre is a relative measure. US$1,500 per m² is expensive in Maracaibo and cheap in Chacao.
2. Ask which area it is. If the listing does not say, ask the agent before comparing it to anything else.
3. Take the extras out. If the price includes two parking spaces and a storage unit, subtract them before dividing, or at least note that they are in there.
4. Distrust round figures on listings with no area. When area is not declared, any price per square metre you see is somebody's estimate.

In Suelo's reports, price per square metre is computed only over listings whose area the agent declared. That is why the listing count behind a price and the count behind a price per square metre do not always match, and why we show both.