Your Home; Junior 4's And Other Puzzles
''It can be a one-bedroom unit with an L-shaped living room or a small den or alcove,'' Mr. Grancaric said. ''But I think that a true junior four is a one-bedroom with a room off the kitchen that was originally set up as a dining area, but that can be turned into a second sleeping area.'' Hopefully, the room has a closet.''
And junior two's and junior three's?
''In my opinion, a junior three is basically the same thing as a junior one with a closet in the sleeping area'' Mr. Grancaric said. ''I don't think a junior two exists.''
O.K., then; what's a half room?
''I would say a half room is any room that's not normal-sized,'' Mr. Grancaric said, adding that a ''normal-sized'' room would be one that is no smaller than say, 10 by 12 feet.
A half bath?
''That would be a bathroom with just a toilet and a sink,'' he said. ''But if the bathroom has a shower, to me, it's a full bath. Some brokers, though, say that for a bathroom to be a full bathroom it has to have a bathtub. That's the problem with the terminology in this business, everybody has different definitions.''
Mr. Grancaric is hardly alone in finding it difficult to precisely define some of the terms he and other brokers the New York City area use to describe apartments for sale or for rent.
Barbara Fox, president of Fox Residential Group, a Manhattan brokerage, said that she has found that a good number of customers are unfamiliar with the vocabulary used for shopping for an apartment in the New York City area. To help alleviate the confusion, Ms. Fox said, she has included a ''real estate glossary'' on her Internet web site at www.foxresidential.com.
''We found it was a real necessity for people who are relocating here from out of town,'' Ms. Fox said.
For example, she said, people are often confused by the difference between a ''loft apartment'' and a ''loft area'' within an apartment. The former, she said, is usually considered to be a large, open space in a current or former commercial or industrial building that has been converted to residential use. The latter, however, is something that might be found in even the smallest studio apartments.
According to Ms. Fox's glossary, a loft area is ''an area created (especially where high ceilings exist) by dividing the space floor-to-ceiling.'' And while the glossary does not include a definition of a ''junior one,'' it does define an ''alcove studio'' as an apartment with an ''L-shaped living room with alcove used for sleeping or dining (or enclosed to become a small separate room).'' A studio apartment is ''one room with combined living room and sleeping area, separate or 'Pullman' kitchen, bath.''
A Pullman kitchen?
''That's a kitchen that has all of its appliances installed along one wall,'' Ms. Fox said. ''Sometimes it's just an open space and sometimes the appliances are closed off behind folding doors.''
While some rooms may or may not be included in an apartment's ''room count'' -- kitchens typically are, but bathrooms generally are not -- some brokers say that there is a basic rule of thumb that should be used by sales agents when referring to the number of rooms in an apartment.
''A broker should not be quoting anything that isn't in the original offering plan or prospectus,'' said Marilyn Harra Kaye, president of Prudential MLBK International, a Manhattan-based brokerage. Those documents, she said, are used when a building is converted to or constructed as a co-op or condominium.
''Some brokers take too much license when talking about the number of rooms in an apartment,'' she said. ''I've seen listing agreements where large foyers are called half rooms.''
But what happens when an apartment listed in the offering plan or prospectus as a one-bedroom unit has since been converted into a two-bedroom or ''junior four?''
''You have to make sure that the conversion was done legally,'' said Donald Kohlreiter, a vice president of Douglas Elliman, a Manhattan brokerage. Mr. Kohlreiter explained that, in most cases, it is necessary for an apartment owner to obtain permission from the New York City Department of Buildings from the co-op board or condominium association before building a wall to create an extra room.
If a wall constructed by a prior owner was built without the necessary approvals, Mr. Kohlreiter said, it is possible that a new owner could be forced to remove the wall if the wall is illegal or a violation of the house rules or proprietary lease.
''If you're not sure what an apartment's original layout should be, you can usually check with people in the building,'' he said. ''Many times the super will know if a particular wall is original or not.''
Ms. Kaye offered some additional advice.
''If the prospectus says that an apartment is a studio apartment, then it's a studio apartment,'' she said. ''If it's a studio apartment that can be converted into a one-bedroom apartment, then it should be described as a studio apartment that can be converted. Simply calling something a room doesn't always make it a room.''
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