You are appraising a 5 year old home. of the livable square footage is 3,500 with a cost of $95 to replace according to a cost-estimating service and the 400 square foot garage can be replaced at $60 a sq foot, calculate the reproduction cost of the structure

The reproduction cost would be calculated by multiplying the living square footage by 95 and then adding that to the product of the garage times 60. Since different parts of the house have a different reproduction cost per square foot, we need to find the cost of each part and then add them together to get the whole. You need to use multiplication because each livable square foot has a cost of $95 and each garage square foot has a cost of $60. Another way to think about this is to say that we have 3,500 $95 parts. To calculate the reproduction cost of the livable space you would multiply $3,500 by 95 which gives you $332,500. To calculate the reproduction cost of the garage you would multiply 400 by $60 which would give you $24,000. To find the reproduction cost of the whole home we need to add the reproduction costs of the living area and the garage together, which would gives $356,500.