“It’s been my experience that the people who rely on price/SqFt/building area for houses are mostly clueless.”
——
Bugs, again I agree with you.

I’ve been looking at older neighborhoods of San Diego. I have a very simple, quick way of looking at house value. I figure that I were my own contractor, I could build my own house on land that is already entitled for $80-$100/sf. If I raze a house and rebuilt (or completely renovated it), the value should still be in within the neighborhood range, albeit on the upper end. If do doing so results in an outlier then the house for sale is too expensive.