Don't price a house wash off the listing square footage

Two houses on the same street. Both 2,000 square feet inside.

The first is a ranch, long and low, 40 feet by 50. Walk around it and it's 180 feet.

The second is a two story, 25 feet by 40 on the ground. Walk around it and it's 130 feet. But every one of those feet goes up two floors.

Price them off square footage and they look like the same job. They aren't. The ranch is 180 feet of wall one story tall. The two story is 130 feet of wall twice as tall, with a ladder or an extension wand the whole way around.

The walk around the house, times the stories

Here's a rough way to put it on paper. Walk the outside of the house and write down the feet. Multiply by the number of stories.

The ranch is 180 times one, 180.

The two story is 130 times two, 260.

That's the number that tracks the work, not the 2,000 on the listing. Price per foot of that, and the two story comes out about forty percent more than the ranch, which is about what it takes.

Kevin Goodwin, who runs crews in Alabama, prices a house wash this way. He also keeps a smallest price, one for a driveway and a different one for a house. Pulling in, unloading, setting up and packing up costs the same on a small job as a big one. If the math comes in under his smallest price, he charges the smallest price.

Driveways are simpler. Bigger driveway, bigger price, with the same smallest price underneath it.

Next time someone gives you the square footage off the listing, write it down. Then go walk the house.

Yardstick prices a house by the walk around it and the stories.