We don't have really any great data yet, and forbearance of up to 12 months seems like it would greatly insulate most real estate prices from taking a nose dive in the near future. 

Without that, he has already known 2 issues with the 3 rooms: missing fire block, wrong insulation, wrong heat duct (they open it from the existing duct that is used for the first floor – to get heat in the basement, it is wrong, it needs to have a separate duct).And only after removing all the drywall and ceiling, our builder will be able to tell us if there is anything more to be fixed to bring it up to code.We finally have the certificate of occupancy for the entire basement today - after 8 months.

The heat from old (o/loaded wattage), incandescent fixtures compromises the insulation & shorts happed. 

A bit of time air sealing and adding insulation as much as possible will go a long way to minimize system costs.

That being said, there are a ton of people that pretend to act as a "matchmaker" (mostly brokers) but these people tend to simply insulate you from the better deals and waste a lot of opportunity.

For it to leak under the sink enough water to conceivably leak through the cabinet floor and past the subfloor and then into the drywall (and maybe past the insulation, if there is any) would be either something leaking for a very long time or a massive leak. 2.

In my particular case raising the ceiling about 15 inches, removing chimney, installing new insulation and adding an Egress compliant window came to 9K. - Then, the most important thing is to determine if it worth it.

It's been a long time question for me whether or not I should continue replacing the water heaters and ensuring proper insulation in the attic, or if I should relocate with a tankless water heater downstairs. 

We're very insulated to recession with Forbes calling us recession-proof in the last downturn.

Most of those older homes in that area were originally built without insulation, and while most have had some added over the years, it's often spotty and inefficient.