(Why, oh why, didn't he just dig down 1.5 more feet???) Likely because he didn't want to undermine the retaining wall. And he might well have done that anyway. We are wondering if it would be worth it to attempt to dig another 1.5 ' out ourselves, by hand? We would have to chop out the cement floor, and would we have to pour yet another retaining wall around the first retaining wall? Before you dig any further or pull out basement posts, have a structural engineer analyze what can or can't be done and how. The dampness may be high humidity that can be handled by a dehumidifier. The rest is pretty straightforward: insulate the walls to at least the minimum recommended R Value for your region. Since the ceilings will be open, I think painting the concrete floors and using low pile non-rubber backed rugs would be an appropriate and economical way of finishing the floor. With a 77" clear height, I wouldn't want to lose any headroom. Beware that finishing basements for living space in many parts of the US requires the installation of an egress window.

Hoo boy...what an off-topic clusterfreak this thread has become! Might as well add to it... I have to disagree with the US as the be-all, end-all of origin and influence. At least that was not the case when I lived in Singapore and Indonesia. For example, US diesel vehicles do not meet emissions requirements for Singapore. Toyota, Isusu, and Mitsubishi dominate the market there. Just like many European countries, all three use particulate traps for thier diesel engines. You will not see a smoking diesel auto, truck, or bus in Singapore. Some US autos can't be sold in S'pore because of the brakelights and turn signals. They require that rear turn signals use a completely seperate bulb from the brake lights. in addition, rear turn signals must be amber. This is a safety protocol inherited from Europe. US banks also have trouble in the Singapore market. The Lion City has adopted EU guidelines for customer privacy that US firms simply could not stomach. Such laws cut down junk mail and reduce the chance of identity theft. Then there is the mobile phone market. US-based standards such as CDMA are virtually unheard of in Asia. The European GSM standard rules, and for good reason. GSM requires the least battery power to produce a usable signal. There is US influence in Asia, to be sure. However, it is not the prime-mover some people would believe. And to our friends from the Great White North... My furnace install has a few components from Canada. The 13ga, 275 gallon Crown oil tank (no relation whatsoever to Crown Boiler Company) I picked up from the Big Orange Box was made in New Brunswick. The 24ga black T's and black solid 90° elbow for the flue I bought at a local hardware store were made in Canada. A flue cover plate, as well as some of the assorted hardware I needed, was also Canadian made. Lot's of things come from, or are influenced by, the American market. Unless you have lived abroad, however, you may be tempted to overrate the effect. Peace. Marco

The days of seeing gains like those in the above posts where an $80,000 purchase sells for many times that years later are over for at least 10 years. Don't expect any major real estate boom any time soon; real estate is going to return to what it's supposed to be for, a place to live and call home, rather then a slot machine that pays out. With that said, I got a super deal on a manufactured home built in 2003 with new 2 car detached garage on a .65 acre lot for under $40k. The modular homes in a new subdivision being built start around $100k and that's with no garage included and they are still selling! They don't look that much different, they have the same or less square footage, yet they are selling for more then double the price. I guess it depends on what you need. Do you need a basement? The manufactured homes around here will qualify for a traditional mortgage as long as they are anchored on a frost free foundation. Surrender the title and they become real property, treated as such. Why pay more for less in an environment where real estate is going to go down adjusted for inflation going forward? If you can find a good deal, go for it. A house is a place to live, a place to call home, that's the important thing.. not bling bling, unless that's your style.

You are SO lucky to be renting! Imagine that you had saved a bunch of money in a bank, and one day you learned that everybody who had put their money into savings suddenly had a third of it taken away. THAT scenario is what a lot of us homeowners are living through. Imagine my situation. I owe $136,000 on a house that I could sell now for $90,000. I have to earn $46,000 to bring to the bank before I can sell my house. That is after I replaced the furnace, water heater, windows, doors, fence, porch, driveway, bathroom fixtures (except tub), kitchen cabs, floor, ceiling, lighting, electrical panel in the basement, and after repairing the roof, adding vents, adding attic insulation, stripping wallpaper, and re-landscaping. Does owning a house sound like an INVESTMENT? Not to me. You pay $700 a month, and can walk away with one month's notice. That is freedom. I have to earn $46,000 to unload my house, then find a buyer. Right now, I have it rented for $200 less than the monthly cost of owning it. My DH wonders if we will ever buy another house if we ever leave here (we live in and make mortgage payments in a different house than the one I described above.) If you want to invest money, find a different way. Savings bonds would be a better choice with housing prices still teetering. Think of a mobile home the same way you do a car. It is never worth again what it was worth the day it drove off the lot. My sis and mom bought one, and I just pray that the mobile home outlives my sis, because she will never have the $ to buy anything else. Another thing to know about manufactured housing is that it is made with materials that "off-gas." Chipboard and MDF and even plywood are held together by petrochemical glues. I read about 10 years ago that living in a mobile home had the equivalent effect on your lungs as smoking does. I could not spend more than a few hours in my mom's former mobile home without having asthma symptoms. The newer the home, the more chemicals continue to off-gas. We are now more aware of the effects of off-gassing, but I don't believe that the industry has eliminated the risk. Your baby may be healthier in an established building like your apartment than in a mobile home.