[iypoon]

I was looking at a house that listed it's square footage as around 1800 and it said it had a finished basement, but when i pulled up the house in the online town records, it shows the liveable square footage at around 1300. I looked at the basement and the difference was exactly the basement size.

Does anyone know what a finished basement needs in order to meet code? I think it'd be pretty good leverage in negotiations if i bring this up

[BobKovacs]

It needs to have a permit pulled for the construction, and it also needs to meet all of the code requirements for egress, ceiling height, lighting, ventilation, etc. If there's no record of a permit for the work having been pulled, it's not a "legal basement".

[iypoon]

thanks

[JayCT]

It sounds like the Real Estate agent is being sneaky. A good one will separate it out, noting that there is X number of square feet in the house and X number of additional in the basement. I believe they can get in trouble if the basement space is listed and it is not legal. Definitely use it in your negoiations. Only compare the house with comparable sized homes above grade. While a finished basement is good and of some value, the real value of the home is what is above grade. Jay

[AmyBergquist]

What's the style of house? Is it a raised ranch or a split level? Towns typically do not include the finished space in the lowest level of these types of houses in their assessments, but most people would argue that it is livable space if it is finished (there is commonly a walk out in these situations).

I agree with Jay that the agent should call out the square footage as "additional" though. In the MLS we typically specify if the square footage as "owner" or "agent" provided if we are counting in this type of additional space, as opposed to "town" provided.

When pulling comparison homes for a pricing analysis, it would be best to pull similar types of homes if there are enough sales in the area (colonial to colonial, ranch to ranch, etc.). From that you should be able to determine if the house is priced accurately based on the usable square footage. A price per square foot analysis should also help you understand if it's in the ballpark or not.

[iypoon]

Originally Posted by AmyBergquist

What's the style of house? Is it a raised ranch or a split level? Towns typically do not include the finished space in the lowest level of these types of houses in their assessments, but most people would argue that it is livable space if it is finished (there is commonly a walk out in these situations).

I agree with Jay that the agent should call out the square footage as "additional" though. In the MLS we typically specify if the square footage as "owner" or "agent" provided if we are counting in this type of additional space, as opposed to "town" provided.

When pulling comparison homes for a pricing analysis, it would be best to pull similar types of homes if there are enough sales in the area (colonial to colonial, ranch to ranch, etc.). From that you should be able to determine if the house is priced accurately based on the usable square footage. A price per square foot analysis should also help you understand if it's in the ballpark or not.

It's a raised ranch (if that makes a difference)

[AmyBergquist]

With a raised ranch, it does actually make a difference. As far as I know, most town assessors in CT never include the lowest level of a raised ranch space in their square footage. It's not really clear to me why because the lowest level space is not truly below grade like you would find in a colonial, for example. Most raised ranches have a full door/sliding doors that allow walk out access to the back yard. It's nice though from a tax perspective because you are taxed on the square footage only on the upper floor, so the total assessment is lowered and property taxes are usually lower.

In most cases with a raised ranch, the agent or owner will add the lower level finished square footage to the total square footage because it is truly usable. It should be called out seperately though to indicate how much square footage is on the lowest level. When doing a market analysis in this case, it would be best to compare the house to raised ranches, paying particular attention to if the comps have included the lower level square footage or not.

[JViello]

Originally Posted by iypoon

It's a raised ranch (if that makes a difference)

Yes it does. That's livable space. Period.

A RR IMHO does not have a "proper" basement, but knee walls above the frost line and that makes it "not a basement".

[iypoon]

thanks again guys