Anyone know the cost to raise a basement ceiling?

Question

Hi, prospective first time buyer here with my wife, looking for a single family home in the East Bay.  A lot of the homes we're seeing have unfinished basements often with low ceilings (6-7 ft).  I was wondering how much it would cost to raise the ceiling on the basement.  We saw one house where the previous homeowners did that and essentially doubled the square footage of their home.  I was thinking this might be a more affordable option to buy a 2 bd 1ba with a basement vs a much larger 3 bd 2 ba, that's outside of our budget.

Brian Garlington · Answer

Have you thought of simply reaching out to the people who are in that property now and asking them if they know how much the cost was to raise the ceiling of the basement?

Something else to remember is that in order for a room to count as a "room" it needs to have two forms of egress. If the only way out of the basement is those steps then that will not count as a room, even if you raise the ceiling. I was showing a spot to someone a couple of months ago and they had a similar idea as you do Stanley and they pointed out the 2 foot wide window in the basement and I had to tell them that an appraiser/inspector will not consider that narrow window a form of egress.