Above Grade Basement Appraisal

[Jacob St. Martin]

Hello BP,

I am a RE investor in Charlottesville VA. There is a house that I am looking at that has an unfinished basement that appears to me to be above grade. The house as is is 5 bed/4 bath 2400 sq ft listed for $585,000. I know that finishing a basement typically doesn't add a lot of value to the appraisal because appraisers only consider above grade square footage and bedrooms. However, because this is above grade I think I can add 1200 sq ft of livable area to the house (2 bed, 1 bath, a living room, and a kitchen). From the comps that I have personally done I believe that a 3600 sq ft house in this area should appraise for 850-950k conservatively.

I reached out to an appraiser for a ball park opinion and he said he thinks finishing the basement would only add 30-50k in value to the home. This seems absurdly low (as long as it really is counted as above grade), so I wanted to get advice from the BP community and hopefully the advice of some appraisers. 

Thanks,

Jacob