garages and basements?? (Charlotte: new home, live, costs)

[trishlee]

Hey, I've noticed as I look at homes on line in Charlotte that most of the newer homes have the garages separate and in the back. That sure cuts out a lot of your yard. Why is that? Is it because lots are so much narrower? Also, don't you have basements down there? I know when we lived in Texas houses didn't have basements but it was because we were near the coast and at sea level 20'.

[SunnyKayak]

Basically new homes it costs the developer money to put in basements 4 brick walls. They do exist though basements, walk out split levels.

They are more interested in saleing liveable space so if a 2500 sqft above ground cost cheaper to build above ground that is the route they take.

Same thing for garages seperated from the home. It costs more to build with the home due to firewallls etc.

Garages are more common in the triad area and not all the homes have garages seperate in the back you just got to keep on looking. I was working on the foyer split leve home in triad today and notice alot of similar homes are available.

[trishlee]

thanks for the explanation. I guess we need to get rid of some of our stuff...exercise equipment, etc. Where does one put all that stuff down there? Maybe your weather is so nice that you can do fun exercise outdoors instead of having to do it in your basement 8 months out of the year because of cold winters in NW Ohio!! Hopefully this will be my last winter up here before coming down to NC where I belong.

[DawnW]

I dont' know what your price range is, but bonus rooms are where most people put exercise equipment if you have a bonus room.

We have a 3 car garage attached and we have a 950 sq. ft. basement. As of yet, it is unfinished, but we still use it. We have a TV area, exercise area and my sewing area down there as well as a large storage area. We plan to finish it off this year.

I would also look at homes with unfinished sq. footage. This could be a walk in attic that hasn't been finished off yet, etc....

We explained to our realtor that we wanted unfinished space that was finishable and we looked at LOTS of houses with potential for additional space.

Dawn

[engineman529]

trishlee

As far as garages go, we have seen alot of 2 car attached garages in new and existing homes. The lots are narrow down here, the property when you get it is usually deeper than wider. You can get basements down here but they are a premium. I went to one builder and they would do a basement on some of their lots but it was an additional 60K to install. Hope this helps.

[trishlee]

Thanks everyone!