No Basements??

[JFinkle]

Originally Posted by Tarheelhombre

In my mom's neighborhood in Winston-Salem, almost all homes have basements. You guys ask like very few homes have basements in the Triad.

I have been doing search after search on realtor.com

For example I looked for homes in my price range in Kernersville without selecting the property feature "basement" and 38 homes appeared. I selected "basement" and 7 homes appeared. That leads me to believe more houses without than with....

[akwebb81]

You're also looking at Kernersville, where most homes have been built in the past 15 years there. You may find it difficult to find homes with basements in some of the "newer" suburbs-Clemmons, Kernersville, etc. since they started their growth 10-15 yrs ago. You will still find some, but will either be older or built in a subdivision where they planned them with the walk out basement.

[JFinkle]

Yeah that is what we have discovered. We want a newer home (0-10 yrs), I have a 60 yr old colonial now and I am done with the constant maintenence. I may rsearch building since we need a basement.

[sandnsea2]

Up North, EVERY home has a basment. That is why he is surprised to see this, as I was.

[SunnyKayak]

Originally Posted by sandnsea2

Up North, EVERY home has a basment. That is why he is surprised to see this, as I was.

but you are now in the new south if you want a basement you are going to pay for it

[JFinkle]

it was surprising, but the cost of homes are much less so I kind of figured this was a way to lower cost of the homes

[casper63]

It is because of the red clay. To have a basement in this area, house should be on a sloped lot, exposing one wall of the basement. If not, there will be issues water, mold, etc.

[arbyunc]

I've heard a couple of reasons why the South doesn't have as many basements. One is because building footings don't have to be as deep here since we don't get really hard freezes as they do in the North. So in the North, you've already dug pretty deep so going a little deeper isn't such a big deal. Second, the warmer weather in the South puts more focus on being outside and having outside spaces such as large front porches, sleeping porches, patios, etc. I think this may have been more of a factor in the old days before air conditioning--people could hang outside so they really didn't need the extra space (and extra expense) of a basement. Not sure if that's really a reason, but I have heard that before.