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all the realtors here will tell you it wont be worth it but everyone looking at homes would be willing to pay a premium for it. I can tell you that in my neighborhood, basements homes are selling for 100K more then other homes if they are on a golf course.
If buyers were willing to pay a premium for those basements, they would appraise for more.
As a Realtor, my experience tells me that most buyers will NOT pay a premium for a basement.
As RedZin said, a home on a golf course lot will most definitely be worth more than a home that is not on a golf course lot. That range could be anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 and up, depending on the home.
Based on my personal experience I think the value of a basement is subjective. Not every appraiser sees them the same way, and the context of the whole property has to be taken into account.
We bought a new home with a basement in November 2007. We refinanced in December 2010 and the appraisal came in only $10,000 under the price we paid despite the market being pretty much as tanked as it got. Does this mean I paid too little? I don't know. Does this mean the appraiser made a mistake? I don't know. What I DO know is at that point in time appraisers were generally really conservative.
A basement, done properly, can be an asset. There are 190 homes in our section of the subdivision. 5 have basements. 2 have resold at prices that I am comfortable with. There will always be buyers looking for basement homes, especially ones that do not have lots that otherwise suck. Basement homes with steep slopes that basically create an unusable backyard are not desirable. The rare basement home with a backyard that rivals a home on a flat lot is tough to find.
I agree, we moved here last year and bought in April. The temperature was in the high 70's and every home we looked at with a third floor bonus was extremely hot cant imagine trying to keep that area cool in the summer. We ended up purchasing a home with a finished basement and it stays about 10 degrees cooler. The basement is finished the same way the main floors are and we get a ton of use... worth every penny in my opinion.
When we moved here, we wanted to see basement homes. There were a few available but not where we really wanted to live. We eventually built a home and did build with a basement foundation. In our last location in the mid-west where basements seemed to be the norm, we'd just "finished" our basement to include a billiard room and theater room, and we weren't ready to downsize yet, hence the desire for another one.
When we were house-hunting, we saw a few homes with finished attics (over a 2-story house)--and hated them. Who wants to go up 2 flights of stairs to play pool? None of them had the AC on up there (I guess unless they were going to be using the space that day), so it was hot.
With our basement, we don't really need to run the A/C--it stays nice and mild down there year-round, varying only by maybe 3-4 degrees. It's a nice walk-out with 10' ceilings and lots of windows on the "open" side; only 1 room--the exercise room--is windowless.
I just don't get the comparison although I can understand some people's dislike of "cave" basements (ours in the mid-west was such) and the problems they present in clay soil (we never had a problem with ours in our old house, but we weren't on clay). With some "southern natives", it's like a cultural thing. Even my mom asked--when we bought first one and then another house in the midwest with a basement--why in the world would we ever want one of THOSE things (I grew up in the south).
... It's a nice walk-out with 10' ceilings and lots of windows on the "open" side ...
That's an important distinction. A cave basement requires an expensive excavation and is prone to humidity problems. A walk-out is less expensive at new-build time, less likely to have moisture, and gives lots of usable space for the money.
Depends on WHY you want a basement. If you come from the mid west and are interested in safety get a cave/walkout basement although we don't have as great a need to protect ourselves from tornadoes on a constant basis (it does happen though). But perhaps you just want the extra space because that is how they do it up North. Down here we use the finished attic or bonus room over the garage concepts to obtain the same extra space (without the need to dig a hole in the ground which can be problematic here as the clay soils tend to fill up with water when you dig a hole).
I think folks from up north tend to like them more because that's what they're used to, so as we have more transplants they may become more desirable. I don't particularly like them myself, even though my house has one.
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