House with or without a basement

Good morning everyone,

we have been facing this exact issue for some time now and have asked ourselves this question very often. Our plot size is currently 760m² and despite the costs, we are leaning towards having a basement, whether with a waterproof tank or a standard one.

What I have noticed over the past few weeks when driving through residential areas is that you can immediately tell where houses were built with or without a basement, by looking at the garden sheds or extensions. Of course, there may be exceptions, but this is my impression.

I think it also depends on the house design. If, like with us, a house with 2 full stories without a proper attic is planned, that option for storage space is no longer available. Furthermore, there is the question of whether a hobby or guest room might possibly be relocated to the basement. Then there is the technical room. Although these are often very small (due to new technology), there must also be space for this on the ground floor (to be planned).

In my opinion, these are all criteria that one must assess for oneself (as well as the costs of a basement), depending on the size and development. I am currently estimating about 60,000 euros for the basement including the floor slab in my case. However, I do not yet have exact figures.

Best regards

Often, m² costs on the ground floor are compared with the costs for a significantly larger basement area. Are these statements correct?

Hello,
we are building in an open-cast mining area and many houses here are built without basements, it is foreseeable that there will be problems with water here. Our basement would have cost about €60,000, which would not have been such a big financial problem for us, but we would have had a basement area of 130 sqm. What am I supposed to do with that?? Our daughter is almost 17 and moving out in a few years is foreseeable... therefore we decided against a basement.
However, we currently have a basement in our house, the move next year will be exciting. But in the new house we have planned several rooms. Attic, since [Satteldach] and another storage room on the upper floor of about 10 sqm. Then we have a utility room of about 18 sqm and another separate room, which could be equipped with built-in cupboards. Overall we have planned generously with 230 sqm for 4 people.

For us, the basement would have been money thrown away. Since we need the space on the upper floor, we didn't have to enlarge the ground floor separately to accommodate "basement rooms" there. And we didn’t want a huge living room of 50m2 anymore. Therefore, it was no problem for us to put the utility room, office, and technical room on the ground floor (we previously had them in the basement). Additionally, we converted the attic and created two nice rooms there that are accessible by a staircase. One is used as a storage room, the other as a playroom. The conversion cost us 15,000, the slightly larger garden shed 2,500 euros. But the garden shed only contains things that we wouldn’t have put in the basement anyway (garden equipment and the children’s fleet).

You can see how individual the need for a basement is. We have very high groundwater and still decided on a basement as a [Weisse Wanne]. We cannot become larger in terms of floor area and need the basement for an office and music room, as well as for technology and utility rooms. We absolutely could not compensate for these 80sqm of basement above ground!! We will have the basement built this autumn if we are lucky, because due to this hot summer the groundwater has dropped by over 2 meters. Furthermore, in our area, a house without a basement is not a house. No one here would build or even buy a house without a basement.

I don’t build a house based on the resale value but in a way that I like it. I’m going to live there for at least 30 years or ideally until I die. But I also don’t buy a white/xy-colored car just because it will sell better someday and annoy myself every day. However, I know many think differently. Moppetüte *12.12.12