Selling house - flooring question

[Lan Mandragoran]

Hello, just hoping for some advice from someone with more expertise than me :P. We're looking to sell our house sometime this spring or summer hopefully, and our basement is currently mostly finished except that the floors are just bare concrete. I'm leery of spending much money on this because its very much an entry level house (147k is what we bought it for in Kansas) and we are just sick of spending money on it. However doing the floors would add 500-700sq ft or so of usable living space. 

I can give more details if thats helpful, but not really sure what would be useful :).

Considering... concrete floors, but the floors have some paint and other junk we'd have to clean off, vinyl which would probably cost like 2k, or carpet/tile. Alternatively I could just do what the previous owners did and leave it, and hope some sucker like me would buy it ;P.

Thanks in advance.

[kanga1622]

Honestly, I'd ask your realtor what they recommend. I'd be tempted to leave it and offer a flooring credit if asked. We loved our vinyl plank flooring for the two years we had it in our basement. Another flood ruined the "click" components when we had to rip it up fast to find the leak. It wasn't hard to install ourselves and since we found a good price, wasn't too expensive for about 600 sq ft.

Now we'd love to clean up the concrete and put some sort of epoxy down. Completely water proof is my wish!

[TheOreoMan]

Have you considered luxury vinyl click? the stuff is extremely easy to DIY and fairly affordable. looks just like laminate 

[Lan Mandragoran]

Yeah... that's probably the most realistic option I think. That would be pretty easy to just put down in a weekend or two as well if the realtor thinks its a good idea.

Anyone else vote for vinyl!? or credit lol. We've realized unless we are rich in both $ and time we absolutely hate owning a house, so you guys are my crowdsourced decisions lol ;P.

[kenmoremmm]

Have you considered luxury vinyl click? the stuff is extremely easy to DIY and fairly affordable. looks just like laminate

ditto.

caveat being whether your floor is flat and how you will finish your walls (LVT + bare concrete walls sounds kind of pointless to me). also, you will need a vapor barrier too, i believe.

[Papa bear]

If you need to put a floor down, LVT is great. But “living space” in basements doesn’t always yield the best returns.  Is this necessary for you to sell?


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[MKinVA]

I would love to do epoxy like in a higher end garage. Shiny grey with the little colored polka dots thrown around.

[SndcxxJ]

+1 for LVT/LVP if the agent thinks an improvement is needed. 
You can get LVT/LVP very reasonably and installation is a cinch.  There are plenty of YouTube videos on the topic of installation.  No special tools needed.  500 square feet can be laid in a day. 

[TheOreoMan]

I would love to do epoxy like in a higher end garage. Shiny grey with the little colored polka dots thrown around.

I have done this for a few clients (my side hustle is a painting business), however, its more of a unique taste... I wouldn't spend the time and effort to do this to prep a house for sale...

Honestly, I would leave as much of the basement unfinished as a "blank canvas" for the new owners to do whatever they want!

[theoverlook]

If it's really finished other than the flooring (ie, insulated drywall walls, nice windows, window coverings, finished ceiling of some sort) then I would think flooring it would be a no brainer. Glue down LVP is great because it's waterproof, but it can telegraph any floor imperfections so the floor needs to be flat. I used groutable vinyl tile (from a big box home retailer) and, as a first time installer of any sort of tile, it took a while but was not difficult at all. It was somewhere around a buck a square foot plus I had to buy grout, spacers, and the tools needed, along with a good set of knee pads. They cut with a utility knife. You'd be well under a thousand dollars by the time you're done, and you'd have a new skill.

[SunnyDays]

My basement walls are all finished. but since I had no plans to actually spend a lot of time down there (but not selling), I just had the floors etched and painted.  Mostly that was to keep down the concrete dust, but it does look much better.  Then I put down area rugs where some furniture is and it's totally useable space now.  If there's any water coming in for any reason, it's a lot easier to replace area rugs than other flooring.

[Lan Mandragoran]

If you need to put a floor down, LVT is great. But “living space” in basements doesn’t always yield the best returns.  Is this necessary for you to sell?


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I dont know. I think I should probably ask a realtor this question. I really dont want to spend 2500 or something and have it not really raise the value at least the same amount or something.

"If it's really finished other than the flooring (ie, insulated drywall walls, nice windows, window coverings, finished ceiling of some sort) then I would think flooring it would be a no brainer. Glue down LVP is great because it's waterproof, but it can telegraph any floor imperfections so the floor needs to be flat. I used groutable vinyl tile (from a big box home retailer) and, as a first time installer of any sort of tile, it took a while but was not difficult at all. It was somewhere around a buck a square foot plus I had to buy grout, spacers, and the tools needed, along with a good set of knee pads. They cut with a utility knife. You'd be well under a thousand dollars by the time you're done, and you'd have a new skill."


Hmmm maybe this.

[Beach_Bound]

Consider exercise mat tiles. They're 2'x2' interlocking dense foam tiles that can be found on Amazon for <$1/sqft. I planned to put them down in just the gym area of my basement. Once they were in, I liked them so much that I put them in the rest of the basement. They're comfy underfoot, super easy to install, waterproof, and hide imperfections in the floor. If one gets damaged, you can quickly swap it out with a new one. Downsides: there might be some off-gassing smell (I didn't notice this, but I'm not particularly sensitive to the smell of rubber or plastics), and they won't stand up to punctures (high heels are a no-go). The more distributed load from furniture should be fine. Visually, they may have less broad appeal than tile, LVT, or laminate, but they're probably the cheapest and quickest way to get a more finished look in your basement.

[Jon Bon]

Highly doubt you would get your money back on this. Tile/LV/ect at best it would just help the house stand out a bit and sell faster.

One of these statements is correct:

Kitchens and bathrooms sell houses OR Basement floors sell houses

[Lan Mandragoran]

Highly doubt you would get your money back on this. Tile/LV/ect at best it would just help the house stand out a bit and sell faster.

One of these statements is correct:

Kitchens and bathrooms sell houses OR Basement floors sell houses

Yeah I understand... It's a finished basement other than this though, and it lets you still up the square footage from a quite low 1250 to 1900. Its definitely a entry level house, and I just dont know. Last year we briefly had a realtor come look at it just to kind of get a feel, and he suggested we do it... but my wife didn't really ask whether (I wasnt there) that was just because that would make it easier to sell or actually get us our $ back.

[Papa bear]

Highly doubt you would get your money back on this. Tile/LV/ect at best it would just help the house stand out a bit and sell faster.

One of these statements is correct:

Kitchens and bathrooms sell houses OR Basement floors sell houses

Yeah I understand... It's a finished basement other than this though, and it lets you still up the square footage from a quite low 1250 to 1900. Its definitely a entry level house, and I just dont know. Last year we briefly had a realtor come look at it just to kind of get a feel, and he suggested we do it... but my wife didn't really ask whether (I wasnt there) that was just because that would make it easier to sell or actually get us our $ back.

So the whole “can you use the basement as square footage in a listing” debate can go on and on. But if you don’t have a 2nd exit through a walkout or true egress window, it’s probably not truly listable as living space.


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[Lan Mandragoran]

Hmmm ok thanks papa bear. I'll just have to speak to a realtor I guess about our specific area and whether its worth it or not.