Should You Stage Your Unfinished Basement?

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4 minute read

June 4, 2021

Here’s a story for you…

Clients of mine have been looking to upsize now for, well, let’s see……..when did they move into their current house?  Ah, yes, so they’ve been looking to upsize since essentially the day after they closed on their current house, seven years ago.  You know the type: they’re always looking, always ready.

They’ve been slowly “chipping away” at their house, upgrading, updating, and adding value and marketability along the way.

Earlier this year, they pulled the trigger on a beautiful century-house, which meant that they’d be selling their current home shortly thereafter.

I hadn’t been to this house since “offer night” seven years ago.  I remember that offer presentation vividly.

This was an estate sale, and thus the house was empty, save for a card-table in the centre of the living room, one folding chair on either side for the listing agent and the buyer agent, and nine extended family members standing behind the listing agent sort of like this:

There was also one dim light, similar to the one pictured above.

I don’t believe the listing agent was that well-dressed, but it was really hard to focus on anything except my shaking right leg…

In any event, with that memory long behind me, I went to see my clients’ house, and low-and-behold, their “semi-finished” basement was actually unfinished.

Semantics, right?

Just consider what we see on MLS on a daily basis…

Part-finished
Full
Half
None
Other
Semi-finished
Finished
Apartment
Sep entrance

What the hell is “full” anyways?

When you see this on MLS:

You can be assured that this is an unfinished basement.

After all, if the basement were finished, then the listing would say “finished.”

A “full” basement is a nice way of saying, “We have a full, unfinished basement.”

But I digress…

My clients had an unfinished basement, although that’s not quite fair, since they had a beautiful 3-piece bathroom.

But the living space was unfinished, in my humble opinion, because there were no walls and no ceiling.

No walls and no ceiling?

No problem!

Just put a carpet down, maybe a couch, an old TV, and voila!

“Finished basement.”

That’s what a lot of home sellers do, and that’s how many listing agents market the home, as well as advise the clients.

But do you know what we did?  We brought in drywallers!  If you’ve ever drywalled, you know it’s a frustrating, messy job.  But for people who do this for a living, it’s simple, and it takes two days, start to finish.

After the drywallers, we had carpet installed, and in three days, we turned an unfinished basement into a finished one, really and truly.

And when buyers came through to look at the house, guess what they saw down there?  A real finished basement!

I understand that frantically renovating your home weeks, days, and eventually minutes before the sale is not for the faint of heart.  We actually staged the property when the basement was only primed and had to paint the day after photos.  We were still vacuuming carpet fibers the morning of the listing.  But the basement was finished, and the price we sold for reflected a wonderful, inviting, cozy lower-level rec-room, perfect for the kids’ play area or the man-cave.

Not everybody has the time, money, and wherewithal that we did.

So what do you do with your unfinished basement?

Do you leave it as is?

Do you simply clear it out, leave some slippers at the bottom of the stairs, and let buyers use their imagination?

Or do you stage the unfinished basement?

This is a tough call for me because I am a cynic, but I also am not sold or taken advantage of easily.  Ask my wife what it’s like to watch a television show with me.  I point out all the inconsistencies and plot holes and refuse to simply allow myself to be entertained.  She hates it.  We’re watching “Who Killed Sara?” on Netflix right now, and I have to pause every couple of minutes to explain why the show may as well have flying dragons because the writing assumes the viewer is a moron.  But again, I digress…

lot of Toronto houses are featuring unfinished basements that are staged, and I’m curious to know what you, the readers, think about this.

On the one hand, it makes sense to put your best foot forward.  Whether you’re combing your hair before going on a first date, or cleaning your car before you photograph it to post on Auto Trader, we all know how to improve the look of something or someone.

On the other hand, buyers don’t like obvious attempts at fooling them, and staging some unfinished basements can look ridiculous and actually backfire.

Let’s take a look at a few…

Here’s an unfinished basement, with no ceiling, exposed ducts, pipes, and wires, but clean painted brick walls:

The electrical panel doesn’t really scream “recreation-room for the kids,” but there is a carpet.

Here’s another angle:

I don’t think it’s egregious, but I also don’t know if I’d have done the same thing…

Here’s a similar example, except they have wall-to-wall broadloom rather than an area rug:

But they’ve drywalled areas of this basement, so all it’s really missing is a ceiling:

Unfinished?  Not quite.

Finished?  No.

Semi-finished?  Sure.

Here’s one where they’ve installed laminate flooring, drywalled two-thirds of the space, but haven’t put in a ceiling:

Why haven’t they put in a ceiling?

Because they’d lose another 4-5 inches at least, and they want to keep the high-point of the ceiling as high as possible.

This one is a bit rougher:

Another electrical panel, some ductwork, and wires.

The artwork on the left side just looks silly.

This one looks decent at first glance:

Multiple area rugs, a cozy chair, even a cool wooden coffee table with an orchid!

Except, the couch isn’t facing a 65-inch TV.

It’s facing the furnace

If you feel the exposed ceilings are a dead-ringer for “unfinished,” you can always try painting them white:

Would you call this “unfinished?”

I mean, if there was no furniture down there, then yes.

But they did a decent job of making this look like real living space:

Here’s another example of what is essentially an unfinished basement, with a concrete floor, brick walls, no ceiling, and exposed wires, pipes, electrical panel, and a water meter, but with staging furniture that almost makes it look passable:

You’ve slept in worse hostels, right?

It’s really, really tough to fake decent ceiling height when you know that your head would almost be touching the wall-to-wall ducts, as you’re sitting on the couch:

Last but not least, I’m not sure what’s happening here.

This is half-home-gym, half-first-date-at-a-bar:

So what say ye?

Would you stage your unfinished basement?  I suppose that depends on the advice you receive.

So answer me this: if you were an active buyer, and you went downstairs to see any of those basements above, would you giggle at the sellers’ attempt to pass off their unfinished space as a real rec-room, or would you find it helpful and place a higher value on the home?

Written By David Fleming

David Fleming is the author of Toronto Realty Blog, founded in 2007. He combined his passion for writing and real estate to create a space for honest information and two-way communication in a complex and dynamic market. David is a licensed Broker and the Broker of Record for Bosley – Toronto Realty Group

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11 Comments

  1. Pingback: Best Real Estate Agent In GTA – Should You Stage Your Unfinished Basement? – Toronto Realty Blog
  2. Appraiser

    at 8:40 am

    TRREB sales data for May:

    11,951 sales – second highest May on record (only 2016 was higher).

    All-Time highest average price record for any month in any year – $1,108,453.

    HPI index is up 18.8%.

    With sales up 160% over last year and listings only rising by 4%, listings continue to languish at around 1 months worth of inventory.

    With June being the first month under the new stress-test (MQR) rules, it will be interesting to see if / how the market reacts.

    1. Chris

      at 9:41 am

      Finished basements could be the trickery that may give some buyers pause. What are the walls and floors hiding? Exposed beams/floor joists would almost always be preferred for easy access to the plumbing and electrical, without the homeowner having to tear out & patch up drywall after fixes are made. And there are always fixes right? Stage away an honest basement!

      1. Condodweller

        at 10:54 am

        Exactly. If I finished it I would know exactly where everything is and that it was done to my standards.

  3. Ed

    at 8:46 am

    I have no problems with the semi-finished basement and white ceilings. You assume they’ve been staged but these spaces might have been enjoyed as shown for many years.
    If you don’t have the ceiling height then you don’t have it, drywalling the ceiling doesn’t make the issue disappear.
    So semi-finished with white ceiling, sure. You have to work with what you got.

  4. Jenn

    at 8:58 am

    I don’t love it. It’s an obvious attempt at trickery but are the bowls of green apples on the kitchen counter and bottles of San Pellegrino any better?

  5. Pete

    at 9:36 am

    Personally I don’t like staging at all. But in these cases, I think it’s laughable. I would probably put less value on the home because it just looks so ridiculous.

  6. Steve

    at 1:47 pm

    I’m fine with staging an unfinished or partially finished basement as long as the staging actually makes some sense, that is it’s staged as a gym, play room, or extra living area. I’ve seen some where an unfinished basement was staged as a bedroom though…

  7. Condodweller

    at 10:52 am

    TBH the basement would be the least of my worries. I can probably think of 100 ways to use a basement without trying hard, so using the appeal to most buyers principle how are you going to guess what the person who is going to win will want? Assuming the top three bidders have the different uses for it, first you have to guess, ahead of time, who your buyer will be and then what he wants. Good luck with that.

    For me there are three cases: 1 it’s a perfectly finished usable basement with floor covering, drywall and finished ceiling with at least 6’6″ height. Stage it. 2 completely unfinished, leave it as is. 3 somewhere in between most likely unfinished ceiling due to height limitations along with all the mechanicals etc. Here I’d just leave it and prep it as best I can to put it in the best light. Of the examples I like the ones with the painted ceiling most.

    I guess it’s always easy for an agent to spend the seller’s money to make the most of it. My rule has always been that if I’m going to spend a significant amount to improve something, I need to benefit from personal use.

    As a buyer I would prefer a blank canvas where I can come up with my own design without the additional headache of ripping things out.

    I know some who completely finished a large basement prior to selling, presumably on the advice of the agent. They must have spent at least 50k on it. Whether I’m going to get that back is not a gamble I’m willing to make.

    I just as soon dump the money into a Canadian bank or Google or probably both. It will make up for any shortfall my not refinishing might have caused.

    Now if the agent is willing to pay for it by all means, our YOUR money where your mouth is.

  8. Go1Mr

    at 12:15 pm

    Great article btw

  9. Benny Hinn

    at 8:45 am

    the decision to stage your unfinished basement will depend on your specific circumstances, including your budget, goals, and timeline.

    See more also about Basement Finishing Spokane

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