So we are trying to buy a house. I have six children under age 10. We want a 3000 sq ft house but it doesn’t have to be 3000 FINISHED sq ft. But therein lies the issue. Why don’t any of these house listings tell you the TOTAL sq ft both finished and unfinished? I would be perfectly happy with a house that had 1500 finished sq ft and another 1500 unfinished sq ft in the basement or attic (my kids would love an unfinished basement to play in).
As it is now, I look for a 3000 sq ft house and my search only returns houses that have 3000 finished sq ft. I am frustrated b/c I am sure I am overlooking many fine houses that would work great for us b/c these listings don’t identify the total square footage.
Am I doing something wrong or is this just the way things are?
I think you can assume that if there is no listing of unfinished sq ft, it’s because there isn’t much. At least where I live, if a house has 1500 sq ft of unfinished space, it would be advertised as such.
But keep in mind that you cannot legally include unfinished or unconditioned sq ft in your claim for what the house is. Similarly to a room w/o a closet, or one without egress-- you cannot call that a bedroom.
It’s been a long time since I lived in areas where unfinished basements were the norm, so maybe things are different there. Ask your realtor to help. That’s what they are for.
Houses are listed with finished square footage because that’s the only part that’s consistently regulated and recorded in public records. Unfinished space is a nice extra, but it’s not a core characteristic of the house as far as records are concerned the way that finished footage, number of bedrooms, and number of bathrooms is. From my experience, you really have to examine the space before you believe a number on a report - some ‘unfinished space’ means ‘you have a nice room that we never pulled permits for’, while other is space that needs significant work before it’s safe to let kids run around in, and still more is space for isn’t all that useable (people will include the slanted part of the attic all the way to the corner, even if only a few feet in the middle could support a regular ceiling height.
Depending on zoning, you could likely buy a house and put a large ‘shed’ or two in the back to make kid/workshop space that doesn’t need to be part of the house. Also, have you considered 1500 square feet is a LOT of unfinished space - a 20x20 building, which seems like it would easily fit 6 kids playing, is only 400 square feet. It seems really odd to me to need that much unheated, unelectrical space, even with six kids.
There’s be too many arguments about what constituted “unfinished space”.
The mud and under the house piled up to just touching the floor boards ? Its unfinished because it hasn’t been excavated.
And yeah home owners don’t want to publish unfinished space as it might increase taxes. (rates), if the system is based on value … (here the gov says they base the taxes on the LAND value, but the hell, land value increases with house value… generally… )
Taxes are generally based on finished - hence, that is the only number on the recorded deed. The RE person putting up the listing could be sued for misrepresentation if he/she were to show any number NOT on the deed.
If you know that full basements are common in your area, search for >=1500 AND basement.
If you know high, usable attics are common in a given neighborhood, search that particular neighborhood (zip code) for >= 1500
Get creative with the search tools - or hire a ‘buyer’s agent’ - a licensed Realtor ™ who is paid by the buyer and represents the buyer. You just may find the experience of a good agent in knowing where/how to find ‘between the lines’ features worth the price.
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