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2.1 Baths |
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I am in no means any kind of expert, all I do is read the real estate section to understand what I have and watch market values in the area. I have also faithfully read your column in the Sunday paper each week for as long as I can remember.
Recently a reader asked what 2.1 bathrooms meant. I was surprised by your answer, but perhaps the notation is something that has not become universal, but only been adopted in some market areas.
1/2 baths have always been common and I indeed remember the time it was common to read 2.5 baths, meaning the house has 2 full bathrooms and one half bath.
In recent years however I have noticed that the decimal point is now used as separator rather than a decimal point. In other words 2.1 would be read 2 full baths and 1 half bath. Likewise 3.2 would be read 3 full baths and 2 half baths.
The previous notation did not allow you to specify more than one "half bath." I suppose it would have been much cleaner had the punctuation been changed from a decimal point to something such as a dash, to denote we are no longer doing it the same way.
I can not cite any official source for this information, it's just what I have come to understand as I glance through the listings. |
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So many readers have written to set me straight on what 2.1 baths means! I do appreciate your taking the time and trouble. You're exactly right, of course. That is not a decimal point at all -- it's, as you aptly put it -- a separator. These days, computer-speak, it's simply a "dot" I guess. Have you noticed that something we'd use nine syllables for in the old days "asterisk, period, asterisk" is now "star,dot,star"? |
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Edith
Originally published on September 4, 2007 |
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