Selling house- should we 'clean up' an unfinished basement

[Anonymous]

We are looking to sell our house in the next few months, and are doing minor repairs to get it ready. Our basement is unfinished. We had a water problem down there (water leaked in during large storms), which we took care of, and it's been dry for about 2-3 years now. But it's a 1960's house, and the concrete floor is cracked in a few places and the whole place just looks dingy.

I want to install a vinyl floor and paint the concrete block walls white, just to clean it up and look like someone could finish it easily. It is large enough and has high enough ceilings to finish it nicely with a rec room and/or guest room/bathroom, and I don't want buyers to be turned off because it's a dingy, unfinished basement.

My question is: do buyers care if it's totally unfinished vs. new flooring/new paint but still unfinished ? Properties in our neighborhood are going for way over asking price, and I don't want to do the work down there if nobody is going to care. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I think anything that would brighten it up—paint and lighting. I personally wouldn’t bother with the floor.

You could throw down a large area rug instead.

[Anonymous]

I would care- flooring and bright paint is like 60% of what I need in the basement

[Anonymous]

Lots of lights and electric outlets - you want it lit up because basements are so dingy. And yes to the paint. No need to do the floor per se. We had painted our unfinished concrete floor with a nice concrete paint too because it had a whole lot of stains from a previous water damage that was fixed. A young couple with a small boy bought our home and they were excited about having a nice place for their kid to ride his tricycle. I wonder if they ever finished it?

If you have a stairwell, you should also power wash and paint. You do not want mud, spiders, moss etc anywhere near. Make it look clean and crisp.

[Anonymous]

Do not hesitate to do it, OP. A little investment will go a long way.

[Anonymous]

I would fill the cracks and wash the floor. Warm it up a little down there with cheap rugs or something bright on the walls if you think it really matters, but I wouldn't bother with the flooring on the chance that the buyer may want something different and rip it out anyway, so for environmental reasons I wouldn't. Flooring goes in last when finishing a basement and who knows what they would want to put down there.

[Anonymous]

The basement in the current house we live in was unfinished. The concrete floor was painted grey and the concrete walls were painted white. The exposed bulbs were all working and bright, and it was overall clean and not gross or really cobwebby. We bought this house partially bc we wanted to do our own thing in the basement, and we are finishing it now. I'm very glad there was no flooring we'd have to rip out.

[Anonymous]

OP here: this is super helpful, thank you, everyone! We'll fix the cracks and paint all the surfaces.

[Anonymous]

Yes, you definitely want to fix the cracks in the floor. Cracks in the floor make some people wary because they suspect either settling problems, water problems or worse, foundation problems. I know some buyers are completely turned off by concrete flooring issues on the lowest level of a house.

At a minimum you can do touch up filler, but if someone in your family is handy, it would be best to do self-leveling concrete (not expensive and you can find instructions on Youtube). It just makes the floor look so much better. It will also hide and water damage to the surface in addition to the cracks. And a coat of some light color will make a huge difference in the basement. Another tip, replace exposed standard light bulbs with flood light (65W or the LED equivalent) bulbs. It really brightens up a space having the brighter light. It makes the basement look like someplace you'd like to be, rather than a dark hole in the ground that you want to avoid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, you definitely want to fix the cracks in the floor. Cracks in the floor make some people wary because they suspect either settling problems, water problems or worse, foundation problems. I know some buyers are completely turned off by concrete flooring issues on the lowest level of a house.

At a minimum you can do touch up filler, but if someone in your family is handy, it would be best to do self-leveling concrete (not expensive and you can find instructions on Youtube). It just makes the floor look so much better. It will also hide and water damage to the surface in addition to the cracks. And a coat of some light color will make a huge difference in the basement. Another tip, replace exposed standard light bulbs with flood light (65W or the LED equivalent) bulbs. It really brightens up a space having the brighter light. It makes the basement look like someplace you'd like to be, rather than a dark hole in the ground that you want to avoid.

How hard is it to use the self-leveling concrete? My husband wants to do that himself in our basement, but....his track record with home improvements....not awesome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, you definitely want to fix the cracks in the floor. Cracks in the floor make some people wary because they suspect either settling problems, water problems or worse, foundation problems. I know some buyers are completely turned off by concrete flooring issues on the lowest level of a house.

At a minimum you can do touch up filler, but if someone in your family is handy, it would be best to do self-leveling concrete (not expensive and you can find instructions on Youtube). It just makes the floor look so much better. It will also hide and water damage to the surface in addition to the cracks. And a coat of some light color will make a huge difference in the basement. Another tip, replace exposed standard light bulbs with flood light (65W or the LED equivalent) bulbs. It really brightens up a space having the brighter light. It makes the basement look like someplace you'd like to be, rather than a dark hole in the ground that you want to avoid.

How hard is it to use the self-leveling concrete? My husband wants to do that himself in our basement, but....his track record with home improvements....not awesome.

Not hard. We did ours.

[Anonymous]

Light the place up like an operating theatre. Flood every corner with light. Makes a huge difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, you definitely want to fix the cracks in the floor. Cracks in the floor make some people wary because they suspect either settling problems, water problems or worse, foundation problems. I know some buyers are completely turned off by concrete flooring issues on the lowest level of a house.

At a minimum you can do touch up filler, but if someone in your family is handy, it would be best to do self-leveling concrete (not expensive and you can find instructions on Youtube). It just makes the floor look so much better. It will also hide and water damage to the surface in addition to the cracks. And a coat of some light color will make a huge difference in the basement. Another tip, replace exposed standard light bulbs with flood light (65W or the LED equivalent) bulbs. It really brightens up a space having the brighter light. It makes the basement look like someplace you'd like to be, rather than a dark hole in the ground that you want to avoid.

How hard is it to use the self-leveling concrete? My husband wants to do that himself in our basement, but....his track record with home improvements....not awesome.

Not hard, but you need two people, one to mix, one to spread. It sets relatively quickly and you can't mix enough to dump and spread before it sets.

Go to youtube and watch some videos. Here's one that will give you an idea of the various steps.

[Anonymous]

I would not put in a floor if the walls are unfinished. It’s weird. I’d just paint the walls white and maybe the floor if it’s gross

[Anonymous]

Think about the ceiling too. We looked at one house where they sprayed the unfinished ceiling white, and it almost looked finished. Cheap fix with big impact!