What is Carpet, Built-up, and Super Built-up area in Real Estate?

When having a real estate investment, you always come across the term that this apartment has 30% loading or this apartment has 25% loading.  What is loading, and what role does it play in your real estate investment? But before that, we have to understand three terms: carpet area, built-up area, and super built-up area.  So let's get right into it.

Carpet Area

Carpet area is the actual usable area in your house. This includes areas like the kitchen, bedroom, living room, dining room, bathroom, etc. Basically, it includes the space where you can lay a carpet. This does exclude walls, balconies, and common areas.

Built-up Area

Built-up area is everything that is included in the carpet area; additionally, it also includes balconies, terraces, and wall thickness.

Super Built-up Area

This is the area you usually pay for; it includes everything that is in the built-up area, plus it also includes a proportion of shared common areas in the vicinity, like lobbies, staircases, clubhouse, etc.

What is Loading

Loading is the area added over the carpet area to arrive at the super built-up area: the more loading, the less carpet and built-up area. To understand this concept, consider the following: if the project you’re investing in has a 1,500 sqft carpet area and a 35% loading, then the super built-up area would be 2,025 sqft, with 525 sqft added to the super built-up area. Alternatively, you can do it the other way around. If the super built-up area of the apartment you are investing in is 4000 sqft, with a

25% loading, then the carpet area would be 3200 sqft.

Why is it Important

Transparency: A flat sold as 1500 sq. ft. super built-up might actually provide only 1050–1125 sq. ft. of carpet area, depending on the loading.

Comparison Tool: When comparing two projects, always ask for carpet area instead of just super built-up.

RERA Regulations: Today, under RERA, developers must disclose carpet area, making comparisons easier.

Conclusion

In short, you might be looking at 2 projects with the same super built-up area, but the actual apartment size may vary. This is where the loading percentage and carpet area come to play. You may be looking at a project with 3800 sqft of super built-up area and another one with 4000 sqft of super built-up area, and they both might have the same carpet area, or in some cases, the carpet area could be more in the 3800 sqft apartment. So look for the carpet area before investing and choose wisely. Make the most of your investment.