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The house I used to live in was a three story townhouse with first floor fully above ground yet only the 2nd/3rd floors were calculated in the square footage and people showing the house (I rented, it was foreclosed on, I allowed people to show) referred to first floor (about 500 sf living space and a one car garage) as a basement...why?
Arbitrary conventions in the industry that are inconsistent and make little sense. I have a 'walk out basement' that is valued by appraisers at half per foot as the rest of the house is even though it is fully functional living space that we use more hours per day than the second floor. Have never been given an explanation that makes sense.
MrRational, I have no idea, given that a basement is defined as"one or more floors of a building that are either completely or partially below the ground floor." cdelena, why would a first floor wholely above ground not count in the square footage at all? Maybe it will forever be a mystery to me.
Did the 1st floor rooms have windows at 3'-6" that could be used as fire escapes, and was said 500 sq ft directly connected to above without going through the garage?
Our basement has two bedrooms, each with 4' x 5' windows and wlak in closets; a large bathroom with a jacuzzi tub shower sauna; and a game room. In addition to the windows there is access to the rest of the house via a stairway and another Bilco type stairway that goes outside.
Notwithstanding that, the appraisers do not count the square footage, they do not count the two bedrooms (even though they are the biggest bedrooms in the house). the space if fully permitted, beautifully built out and you cannot tell you are not in any other part of the house except it is much quieter than upstairs. They increase the value of our house by $5,000 for the whole thing (the shower/tub unit alone costs $5000). We cannot include the bedrooms in any listing of our house if we were to sell it. We also cannot include the bathroom in the listing. Thus while our living space includes 6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms and 4800 s.f. living space, we can only list it as 4 bedrooms 3 bathrooms and 3300 s.f.
It is just the rules of silliness that govern appraising and real estate listings.
Doesn't make sense to me from a code standard. Sounds like Cold Jensens, and the OP meet the definition to be considered R1 (Coldjensens is R3) occupancy, so why it is not included is beyond me? I know this 3 story, or loft design has become popular in multi family dwellings. Doesn't sound like a code issue, but I may not have a full understanding.
Oh and completely off topic but George Jones? Listening to He Stopped Loving Her Today now.
I'm taking this hard too. Willies Roadhouse on satellite was playing all his songs.
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