A pool in the basement is a clear marker of wealth

Big fan of basements… In bay area specifically, they make a lot of sense because of story-limitation. If you cannot go up, try going down.

I’m no construction expert, but I would imagine basements in general are cost prohibitive in the bay area due to earthquake codes etc unless you are so rich it doesn’t matter. I defer to the builders here @Elt1 and @ptiemann for additional color.

One story basement i think is similar costwise to an above ground story.

For places like palo alto, not building basement (except in the case of flood zone) is not a great investment :slight_smile:

Most of Palo Alto is lowland. Not as bad as foster city but will get inundated in the event of a sea level rise.

I dont think people buying pa really cares. Build basement eos.

Worst case, you can rent it. Make it have a separate entrance. You can do design hacks with what parts of the yards are visible to basement. You can make it look side yards for 3xample

Basements cost more than above ground construction and can be a leaking mess. Sump pumps need back up generators for emergencies. City of PA doesn’t allow pumping baseman’s water into their drainage system. Jack pot nightmare.

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For the builder, sounds like a profit :), for the trophy house buyer, don’t think they’d care.

Building a fence out of concrete is a lot more expensive than building one out of wood.

Basements aren’t cost prohibitive in PA, MP, LA, MTV, RWC, or even most places in the Bay Area really. Isn’t it closing in on 1M to buy in with lots of places hitting the 1000/sqft threshold?

Basement = Not rich enough or want to do something fishy.
Super-rich in SB buy surrounding houses e.g. SJ bought the house behind to use as garden. Mark Zuckerberg bought surrounding houses as barriers.
Want a very private pool, buy all the surrounding houses to use as barriers.

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Yes, basements are for rich people wannabes only… :smile: