Basement type vs. Home's Value (percent, building, survey, common)

[pepe1]

I realize the following question varies some from market to market, but maybe someone can give a ballpark figure…

In the upper Midwest – it is obviously customary for new homes to have basements. Where I live, it is generally very flat terrain – therefore it is most common to see the “traditional” completely blow grade basement with egress wells installed at the windows. You’ll also see a few daylight (full size above grade windows) basements when slopes on the building lot allow. Well, because of a lot surveying error, a home that was specified with a daylight basement was accidently built as the more traditional basement type with window wells.

I know the traditional style basement will negatively affect the value of the home as compared to the home if it would have been built with the daylight basement. Anyone have a sense of dollar amount or percent of value decrease with this traditional basement type? For reference, the home would have a market value of about $250,000 if correctly built with the daylight basement.

[chet everett]

Boy that is a lot of "ifs" -- there are some people that just flat out love basements and would give their right leg to have a nice bright one with big windows that look out at something other than simply a "well liner" and then there are those that never go down into the basement at all.

Huge range of people somewhere in the middle that think a basement is a plus, but would really not pay a nickle more for one kind of window / grade vs another. Heck there are probably those that feel the ease of seeing INTO a basement with larger windows is a negative for their privacy!