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Is having a finished walkout basement sought after in the Triangle? Can someone explain the pros and cons? One negative I have read is that many of the lots are slopped since its partially built into a hill.
Thanks all.
Is having a finished walkout basement sought after in the Triangle? Can someone explain the pros and cons? One negative I have read is that many of the lots are slopped since its partially built into a hill.
Thanks all.
I think many people like the idea of basements including walk-out basements. They just aren't that common in this area at certain prices points, and like you pointed out they usually exist when the topography lends itself to them (ie sloped lots).
Last edited by North_Raleigh_Guy; 08-27-2008 at 08:42 AM..
I've lived most of my life in houses with walk-out basements and boy, do I miss 'em! I don't know if people here like them--with our expansive clay soils, basements of ANY kind are often a problem here. But if they're built properly with lots of reinforcements and strong footings and good waterproofing, I don't see why they should be structurally any worse than a crawlspace foundation etc.
My old neighborhood in Cary (Highland Oaks) had a lot of walk out basements and they were very popular and sold well and have held their value / appreciated better than the two story homes (probably because a lot of the basement buyers got very nice deals initially on those homes so 3 of the 4 resales made about $100k in 1-2 years, even in this market).
We loved them, but they weren't in our price range. My two concerns would be (like you mentioned) that they tend not to be on level lots and to get to the backyard you either have to go through the basement or down a big set of stairs off the deck. For me that wouldn't be ideal because we have dogs.
A lot of older homes such as ours have full walk-out basements. Water infiltration can be a challenge, but that is often due to bad design or drainage systems that are no longer effective(plugged, etc).
If designed and implemented properly, a full basement here can be trouble free and a nice asset. Even if not finished for occupancy, it is a great place for storage and mechanical systems.
Pros are that you do get more space and when you have children, they make a great playroom.
Cons are that you are on a sloped lot and to get to the backyard, you have to go through the basement or down a big flight of steps. I have small children, and I like to be able to just let them run in and out, so it doesn't work for me right now.
Gotta love a basement but a non-walkout basement would be the pits. We have a walk-out and although some of our yard slopes, we have a ton of flat space too with access from ground and underground levels!
Well let's assume it's a typical 3000 sqft house. It adds an extra $50k onto the price of the house and that's for an unfinished basement. Now you have to drop another $50k+ to finish the basement. So that's an extra $100k to add a play room and a bedroom which I am guess is about 1000sqft. Or you can finish the attic to get an extra bedroom. Most houses have a playroom/bonus room over the garage and people are looking for an extra bedroom or even media room which you can easily do with an attic. I am guessing you could probably finish 500 sqft in an attic which would be about $25k. So it's all what you want to do. I have some friends that finished there walkout basements very nicely for about $70k, not including the extra $50k they spent to even put in the unfinished basement. So they spent $120k extra on there house to have an extra 1000sqft. So now they have 4000+ sqft house. I built a house recently and had an option to do basement but chose not to because I would never had really needed the extra space. In fact I don't need all the space I have now. Instead I pre-finished my attic just in case I ever want an extra bedroom/playroom/media room which I could finish for about $20k.
We opted against a walk-out basement in our home, which is on a "basement lot" because it would have added 50k to the price (for an unfinished basement).
Instead we got a "tall crawl" foundation that will accomplish 70% of what an unfinished walk-out would do for us with no added cost. It looks like this underneath (note, this is under construction still and will be cleaned up before closing - this was taken only about a month after breaking ground):
Last edited by sneezecake; 08-27-2008 at 10:18 AM..
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