^ Finished basements and property value

[simpsongal]

Where we live, above-grade basements are very common. I think they're regarded as 100% space in the house (not including the unfinished area for gyms and water heaters).

Below grade basements probably translate to 85-80% of non-basement space. Just anecdotal numbers from buying and monitoring the market around here. I suspect basements in HCOL, densely-populated areas are more valuable than rural/suburban areas.

We don't really use our basement right now, except the gym in the unfinished area.

[ijack]

I would say $40k ish for a 750-1000 sqft basement.

[countthestars]

We didn't like any of the houses that we looked at with finished basements because we really need the storage space. I think the ones we saw that had them were approx $5-$10k more

[littlemermaid]

In my area, a finished basement is a plus. A lot of people use their basements for an entertainment room, office, playroom. In ours we have another full kitchen, a 1/2 bath, office/playroom and then a large area to set up tables/chairs when we have large groups of people over for holidays/birthdays and a storage area too. Our basement is large since we have a ranch(2000 sqft), so our basement is the same size as the main level.

[simpsongal]

Sept 10, 2012 13:02:23 GMT -5 @msstarry said:

Sept 10, 2012 13:01:21 GMT -5 simpsongal said:

Where we live, above-grade basements are very common. I think they're regarded as 100% space in the house (not including the unfinished are for gyms and water heaters).

Below grade basements probably translate to 85-80% of non-basement space. Just anecdotal numbers from buying and monitoring the market around here. I suspect basements in HCOL, densely-populated areas are more valuable than rural/suburban areas.

Just to clarify, an above grade basement would mean you could walk out from the basement into the yard?

Yup - only one side though (usually the back of the house). People love them here but I'm not a huge fan. I prefer having my backyard graded to the main living level.

[catbus]

Greatly, in our neighborhood. Almost all the houses were built in the '40s and have two bedrooms on the main floor, with full basements and attached garages below. People often finish basements to add another bedroom... which generally means they convert the garage. I personally think it looks like crap in most cases, since the most common method ends up with a driveway leading to a set of French doors, but there's no denying that squeezing in another bedroom adds value and makes up for anything lost by nixing the (single-car, narrow) garages.

I did not want to buy a house with a converted garage. We lucked out and got a house where the previous owners had added on space "correctly"--they did a master addition off the back, which added our bedroom, a 3/4 bath, and even built out more basement below. Our basement is semi-finished. We got a great deal largely because the listing agent actually played by the rules and listed the house with just its true finished square footage (main level) rather than including the basement and garage square footage. MLS rules require agents list finished and unfinished square footage separately, but from what I've seen that rule is pretty much ignored in the Seattle market.

[atouchofklasse]

For me as a buyer a lot depended on the ceiling height, lighting, and of course the quality of the finish. We have a large basement, 3/4 finished with high ceilings and a bedroom with egress window, and it was a big selling point for my husband. I like the idea of a teenager having his or her own space.

[Deleted]

Our market is similar to yours. It's a nice feature to have but it doesn't add significantly to property values.

We have a basement that we probably won't finish because DH has his wood shop down there and I really don't know how we'd ever contain the sawdust and debris from his projects.

We're planning on moving our washer and dryer to the 2nd floor at some point and after that happens, I really don't see myself going down there much. So finishing it would be a waste of $$$.

[smilelari]

It definitely adds value and as buyers we aren't even considering houses that have unfinished basements

[Deleted]

Sept 10, 2012 13:17:07 GMT -5 @msstarry said:

There's just something about basements to me that they will never be the same as above grade living space so whenever I see people saying "oh I have a 1200 sq ft basement with 2 bedrooms" I wonder how many people are actually using them as equivalent. I also have problems with SAD though, and our market has very few "above grade" basements like PPs are mentioning.

I think the same thing. I just don't have much desire to spend time in a space with no windows or weeny little windows. I don't care how nice you fix it up if it doesn't get any natural light.

[heyrebekah]

Most of the finished basements in our area were done in the 60s or 70s so they don't add any value, LOL. When we were househunting I could just see all the "key parties" that must have taken place back in the day.

But I imagine a nicely done modern finished basement would add $10-15K to the price.

[chessie]

Really depends on area and if above/below grade. I live in a raised ranch so whether I finish it or not, it won't be concerned 100% usable since its below. Also, some buyers like walking into a basement half finished for purposes of a workshop, mudroom, laundry or even just tool storage, obviously you dont want it to be finished for that.

We are finishing half of our basement again..the flood 2 years ago we had ruined everything and the appraiser said even if we did that, the rate would not go up for us and it was primarily dependent on what type of house you had.

[catbus]

Sept 10, 2012 13:17:07 GMT -5 @msstarry said:

There's just something about basements to me that they will never be the same as above grade living space so whenever I see people saying "oh I have a 1200 sq ft basement with 2 bedrooms" I wonder how many people are actually using them as equivalent. I also have problems with SAD though, and our market has very few "above grade" basements like PPs are mentioning.

If the basement is truly underground without egress windows, the finished rooms can't legally be called "bedrooms," and it bothered me a lot when we were house shopping and would find out the third bedroom was actually a random room with a bed in the middle of a basement. We wouldn't use it as a bedroom, and also, the listing agent was being misleading by counting a non-legal bedroom as one.
That said, obviously (as you know) the value of a basement depends on your market. We bought in a Seattle neighborhood in which houses are snapped up very quickly, and many would be considered "starter homes," priced ~$300k+. A finished basement on one of these houses pretty much automatically adds $30k to the asking price, for good reason. The houses are small and there's not a lot of room to build out, so the solution is either finish/convert the basement, add on to the top ($$$, if you recall Jenny1980's quotes a few months back), or knock down and rebuild ($$$$$). These aren't neighborhoods with lots of empty lots available for a developer to throw up a few McMansions.

[caidan]

We are finishing our basement now and also just got the house appraised for a refinance. The appraiser told us to add 25000 to his number when it is completelty finished.

[mbcdefg]

I didn't really see a difference in price between finished vs. unfinished when we were looking at houses. IDK what value our finished basement actually adds to our house, but it was a huge selling point for us when we first saw our house because it was something we'd always wanted.

We didn't really use it for the first ~8 months we lived in the house, just the laundry room and a bit of storage. But once we got a couch and bought a new TV, we spent nearly all our home time down there during the summer since it was much cooler than the first floor. MH put his stuff up on the walls, bought a shuffleboard table off CL, and plans to host his friends for football games in the basement.

We have an above-grade basement that walks out into the backyard, which is a plus when we're grilling. Of our homeowner friends with basements, it's pretty much split between finished and non-finished.

[thatgirl2478]

In our area, a finished basement is not necessarily going to get you a whole lot extra unless it can be counted as extra living space.

That said we're spending approximately 15k to redo our basement to today's standards. Most of the expense is coming from the new larger energy effiicent windows, increased electrical (going from 4 lights & 4 outlets to 16 lights and 18 outlets is a big expense), actual insulation (not the packing material they had used) and dry wall.

We have a large 'extra' space in the back of our basement that some day we'd like to turn into a 4th bedroom- however we would need to add an egress window, more lighting, and a bathroom to make it what we want.