The interesting thing about basements is how they are presented by the owners. 
Basements are less common in Israel then they are in most places in the United States, mainly because private houses are less common. The majority of Israelis live in apartment buildings, but even houses and cottages don’t always have basements.
The Hebrew word for basement has become “basement.” The real Hebrew word is “martef,” but this carries connotations of "dark and dismal," even more than “cellar.” When one thinks of a “martef,” he often thinks of a place that is one level above a cave. “Basement,” on the other hand, brings a more accurate association of what a modern basement really is.
What can be done with an Israeli basement? It depends if there are windows or not. If there are windows, and if there is access to the basement from the outside, the basement can be turned into a separate unit - either an office or residential. Sometimes people do this with a permit and sometimes people do it without a permit. Of course you would want to do it with a permit. It can also be turned into a guest suite, providing maximum privacy for your guests. Some people with large families convert the basement to extra bedrooms. I have seen this done even without windows. It can be used for a study, library, computer room, work-room or office. Some people use it as a play room and some as a storage room.
Basements without windows are stuffy, but because space is so precious in Israel, they are often put to good use anyway. In some of the older neighborhoods, basements are the old wells that used to store the water before they had modern plumbing. As far as I understand, there is no way of installing a window in a converted well. But such areas can be quite large, and people use them for different purposes.
The interesting thing about basements is how they are presented by the owners. Some owners actually present them as basements. That may seem obvious but unfortunately not so common. Many homeowners in Israel will present the rooms in the basement as just more rooms, another floor of the house, putting it on equal status with the rooms on the first and second floors, expecting to justify their high price. For instance, if someone has a five-room house (that means four bedrooms and a living room/dinning room) and a basement that was converted into two rooms, even if there are no windows, he will likely present it as a seven-room home. This tactic never works, as all buyers realize that the dark and sometimes damp rooms with the low ceilings on the bottom floor cannot be considered “rooms” like the rest of the rooms in the house. True, basements add value to the house. But they do not equal the value of space on a regular floor.
Baruch Finkelstein is an owner/broker of Remax Center in Jerusalem. The office is in the shopping center of Ramot and Baruch has agents that service all of Jerusalem.
cell: 972-545-251-219
office: 972-2-586-9980
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