Basement In Florida

[Tom Woolford]

You have not spent a lot of time in Florida have you? In Florida, there are very few homes that are even partially below grade. The water table and soil conditions in most areas down there preclude doing anything even partially below grade without incurring great expense.

Yeah, that pretty much is an old wives tale. We don't have basements because we don't need them. No freeze line so foundations don't have to be as deep as up yonder. . I've seen probably six basements in 32 years, all high and dry. Water Table has nothing to do with it.

 

[EddieB]

Just a thought for you. Call the county tax office. They should be able to spit out a report of every basement sales in the county in a matter of minutes.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

call it a very tall crawl space

 

[Restrain]

Our water table is 2' down here, a basement would be an in-house swimming pool. I would call it a superadequacy, treat it like storage, and tell the lender 'not only no, but H$!! NO!' Nicely, of course. We have had to do that when appraising one in Texas. Again, basements are scarce as hen's teeth.

 

[Joe Flacco]

What Cindy is saying about homes with basements often being the same subdivision makes a lot of sense to me. I would probably look at all the sales in the subdivision in the last 10 years and see if there is one with basement. Or maybe if the subject has a prior sale you can compare the prior sale to other sales in the subdivision without basement that occurred around the same time as the prior sale to extract a adjustment.

 

[residentialguy]

Sounds like the H&BU is an indoor swimming pool.

 

[bnmappraisal]

Just a thought for you. Call the county tax office. They should be able to spit out a report of every basement sales in the county in a matter of minutes.

This is one of the things on my list for this assignment. I don't see any option through MLS to search for/by basement/below grade (imagine that) nor on the County website. I was thinking a call to them might be easier. Thanks Eddie

 

[bnmappraisal]

I would probably look at all the sales in the subdivision in the last 10 years and see if there is one with basement.

The problem is not being able to search MLS for basements

Or maybe if the subject has a prior sale you can compare the prior sale to other sales in the subdivision without basement that occurred around the same time as the prior sale to extract a adjustment.

Sadly they've been there 30+ yrs, so no go on prior sale

I am hoping the county (as Eddie mentioned) may have some info that I can use to then compare with other similar homes to extract an adjustment. This should be fun! (slight sarcasm)

 

[bnmappraisal]

I've seen probably six basements in 32 years, all high and dry.

Any "recently" (say the last 5-10 years?) in northern Pinellas County? Hell, I might even consider southern Pasco

 

[CindyR]

. I don't see any option through MLS to search for/by basement/below grade (imagine that) nor on the County website.

Wow - what a bummer and another one of those lovely locational differences. Even though we have almost no basements here we do have a datafield in MLS for them and it even includes full or partial and finished or unfinished. And, i can also search for random words in the descriptions and public remarks fields where an agent might mention a basement. Good Luck BNM!