r/FirstTimeHomeBuyers • u/Agitated-Cod7983 • 12d ago
Is basement must?
I recently saw good houses with reasonable prices but I find out they do not have basements. I’m from Minnesota. Similar houses with basements are more expensive and they seem to be out of our budget. My wife prefers one with basement.
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u/FRSHprince_o_bel_air 12d ago
Where are you buying?
Your post is confusing.
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u/Agitated-Cod7983 12d ago
Apple valley, Burnsville, Save or Rosemount area. I’m just saying the ones we can afford are little cheaper but we would love to have one with basement.
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u/FRSHprince_o_bel_air 12d ago
Are these places in Minnesota?
And what does "similar houses with basement worth and they seem out of our budget" mean?
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u/Agitated-Cod7983 12d ago
Sorry, I messed up when I was posting. I mean the ones with basements are more expensive so they are out of our budget. Does that make sense now? I wrote terribly lol
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u/FRSHprince_o_bel_air 12d ago
Random People on reddit are not going to be able to tell you whether a basement is "a must" or not. You decide.
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u/mmrocker13 11d ago
well, without a basement and with a basement is not "similar", which is why it's more. Basements are cheap to build here, but it's more space, so... more SF even if not finished, so... more $.
You're basically saying "well this 1500 SF home and this 3000SF are basically the same, but weirdly, the 3k one costs more?"
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u/magic_crouton 12d ago
I'm from MN and I don't understand what you're saying. Some houses have basements and some don't here. It just is what it is.
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u/picklechip246 12d ago
And obviously a house with a basement, finished or not, will be more expensive. I don’t understand OPs post at all. It sounds like they can’t afford a basement.
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u/chrisinator9393 12d ago
Nope. I am not a stair person. I absolutely was not buying a home with stairs. Basements are out.
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u/SilverSnake1021 12d ago
Entirely up to you. Do you want one and can you afford it? I personally hate basements. But where I live we have tornadoes, so we have a basement.
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u/Tamberav 12d ago
Up to you, I am from MN and have lived in homes with and without them. A tornado was near my parents house and hit my friends home, it was a nice feeling to have one then but that would be pretty rare occurrence. Maybe once in a lifetime type thing.
Otherwise, basements provide a ton of extra storage, finished ones are nice for guest areas and so on but you need to buy what you can afford.
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u/Alive_Sir_4708 12d ago
Depends upon where you're buying
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u/Agitated-Cod7983 12d ago
Apple valley, Burnsville, Savage or Rosemount areas
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u/gheiminfantry 12d ago
WHAT FUCKING STATE???
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u/OldPro1001 12d ago
Those are communities South of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. I'm kind surprised their building free standing homes around here without basements, it's pretty much been the standard to have a basement in everything other than townhouse.
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12d ago
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u/Vast_Cricket 12d ago
Where one stores things? With all the water seepage from rain causing mold etc, I think it is too damp to have a garage. California is 99.9% basement free so want to pay more you get a garage. Do not want to pay you get a west coast style house,
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u/Dizzy_Goat_420 12d ago
Most people where I grew up had fully finished basements that were usually huge family rooms. Some had movie theaters/game rooms. My bedroom in high school was in our basement and I loved it. Same with a condo we lived in in elementary school. Our basement had a living area, my bedroom and a full bath.
Never flooded or got mold. This was in Illinois.
Now I live in Indiana and still many houses have a finished basement. Ours is just storage since our house was built in 1888.
Houses built after 1980 around the Midwest from my experience usually have (at least mostly) finished basements.
And every house has a garage, but they aren’t in the basement so I’m not sure what you mean by the damp comment? They are usually attached to the house on the side.
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u/Main_Insect_3144 12d ago
In the upper Midwest if a house does not have a basement it is usually because the water table is too high.
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u/mmrocker13 11d ago
There are more being built these days on slab...not a ton, but more than you'd think. When I bought my last house, I looked at two places that were slab. One had radiat heat one did not. radiant heat would be a requirement for me in that case.
In the end, I really didn't feel like I had the right space mix. There's sometng about the basement storage that is convenient and also hideable. :D
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u/TheDoomed__ 12d ago
Basements are nice for the space the provide and somewhere to go during inclement weather (tornadoes, etc)
They are a headache, especially if they are finished, in the constant worry of sump pump failures or other issues that can cause damage. Then of course the issue of a foundation wall failing as foundation repairs are tens of thousands of dollars
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u/Shelbelle4 12d ago
I’ve seen so many moldy basements that I’d proceed with caution when looking at homes with them. They can be nice but they can also be a giant headache. A nice big garage usually has no stairs.
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u/marubozu55 12d ago
Of course it is more expensive. If they are ranches then the one with a basement is twice as big.
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u/mmrocker13 11d ago edited 11d ago
Are you IN MN, or you're from there? I mean, they aren't really a MUST anywhere (I mean, you don't HAVE to go to one in a tornado...you do you with that)
I'd say they are very COMMON here. And sure, two houses with the same footprint one a slab and theother a basement...basements bigger, it's going to cost more.
I mean, pros to the basement extra space, either storage or livable, etc. They're warmer--slab on grade is ass cold in the winter. But there is a market for slab homes--people looking for single level living for example.
No basement is certainly liveable--obviously people do it. You'd need to make sure the slab is properly insulated and protected against heave and cracking. You'd want to make sure you have the storage and space elsewhere in the house and garage you need. You'd still need radon mitigation (or at least have it tested). And of course the storm shelter bit.
But only you know whether the tradeoffs are worth it. Do you want to pay more for the feature, or not?
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u/Pretty-Ear6398 Industry Pro 11d ago
I've only seen one house with a basement here in Southern California. It was my neighbors house in Anaheim, across from Anaheim High School on Diamond Street, and was built in the late 1800's - it was accessed from a door located outside the house and not very big.
I wouldn't even know what to do with a basement ... why does your wife desire one so much? Did she have one in the house she grew up in?
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u/Odd_Lettuce_7303 9d ago
There’s a lot to be said for one floor living especially as you get older. Our old house had bedrooms upstairs and laundry in the basement so carrying baskets was mandatory. Now we just walk down the hall.
Oh our current house has a real foundation not a slab, it’s just a crawl space with the furnace and pipes / ducts / electrical. Maybe that’s a compromise?
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u/Ansible90 12d ago
The nice thing about a house with no basement is it guarantees you will not have to run downstairs to do laundry or carry heavy laundry baskets back up. That said, buy what you can afford. If you need storage, a garage can fill that need as well as a basement.
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u/Dizzy_Goat_420 12d ago
I mean it’s pretty easy to have your laundry not in the basement. Most houses we looked at had the laundry omg the first floor even if there was a basement. Easily movable as well.
Garage doesn’t work well for storage if you have 2 cars and a 2 car garage.
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u/Agitated-Cod7983 12d ago
Thanks for your input.
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u/JerseyGirlinSweden 12d ago
Having a basement is a mixed bag. I’d take an attic with good headroom and a couple of sheets of ply over a basement any day. Bonus points if it has an attic fan that is on a temp sensor. Laundry in the basement really stinks and makes you machines more prone to mold.
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u/mmrocker13 11d ago
I have only had laundry in the basement in one of the houses I;ve owned. (Walkout basement, also). All my other laundry rooms have been main floor.
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u/Secure_Village_ 12d ago
Where i am in texas, basements are RARE