On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 18:17:51 -0500, EXT wrote:


Southern climates allow the builders to skip a lot of expenses, and call
it
standard practice, which keeps more money in their

Lousy thinking. The builder who spends an extra $10,000 to fight with
jack
hammers and explosives to build a basement may not get that extra $10,000
in selling price. Only an idiot will spend $10,000 to get back $3,000.
Send me your $10,000 and I will give you $3,000 for it.

You are very opinionated and don't seem to think very deeply. Yes, solid
rock may be a major deterent, but hard pan clay and other soils should not.
In this region, houses without a basement have problems selling. That extra
$10,000.00 can double your square footage, great for hobbies, storage and
other uses. The cost per square foot is quite small. Only your idiot would
be too cheap to turn down doubling your square footage for a small price.

Here in southern Missouri we have a lot of rock and the expense of building
a basement is much more than the value of a basement. If the problem is
only hard clay then the extra costs of putting in a basement is minimal,
but again, will the builder be able to recover all the cost? It seems to
be that if houses without basements are that much harder to sell then you
live around a bunch of fools. Again, the question would be can I recover
the full cost of the basement. If not, only a fool would put one in. That
question needs to be decided by the individual builder.

I buy, fix, and resell real estate. The ONLY way the value of the house
doubles with a basement is if the basement is fully finished. Even here
where basements are rare I have had to turn down rare houses with basements
because other factors negate the sole benefit of having a basement as the
houses would still be difficult to sell.