Buying an old house regret

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like many on here, we thought the 6,000 sft new build craftman were gaudy and too large, boy did I turn out to be wrong.

I just had our number two and my son is now 3 year old. Even with a nanny, DH and I are absolutely exhausted on the weekend from running repairs and meeting contractors for all sorts of work that needed to be done all over the place. We had our fridge and oven break over the course of the same month, our fridge installation had some issues because the waterlines were setup poorly in the house. Overtime, we found moldy spots in the carpeting and had to just live with it because putting hardwood floors is an investment we would never get our money back on. There were multiple leak on the roof that had to be patched. Our water heater had some issues despite being just 5 years old and our AC system had shorts, which we found was possibly due to the way the wiring is done in the house. If I had to do it all over again, I would just bite the costs and live in a new/new-ish build.

I am really on the verge of losing it even with a nanny. I feel like even having a full butler won't make up for the headache of owning these old homes. My husband tried to convince me to go for a new build but I wanted to budget some cushion for our retirement and vacation. Boy do I regret it now.

If you have young kids, i repeat, do not, ever buy an old house. You are better off renting in an apartment with repair on 24/7 standby or even a new townhouse. If you can stretch it, just buy a new build, the peace of mind of things working at least for the next 10 years is worth your sanity.

Clearly you have a vagina and have not had to work for anything

If you want to successfully troll you have to make your comments slightly less ridiculous.

Sadly, I don't think she's a troll, I think that she was legitimately unaware that houses need maintenance, yards need to be maintained, appliances break down, roofs need to be fixed (even in new builds)....even her childcare is outsourced and she SAH.

This is a person who can't handle responsibility because she's never had to be responsible for anything. I would be really interested to hear how she was kept so sheltered and how she perceived this work getting done while she was growing up. Did her parents hire everything done? Did they have a great handyman on call that rushed in and fixed everything for them?

Does she know that the oil in her car needs to be changed? Does she realize that tires need to be replaced every "X" number of miles? Does she realize that she's responsible for maintaining her vehicle? Or does she just Uber everywhere?

[Anonymous]

This person is FOS:

I have all of that and more in my McCraftsman built in 2018, and it was all designed into the house. I also have sound dampening insulation in every room.

How would you have old growth trees and shrubs within one year?! And where does one build such a SFH house within walking distance to a Metro station? There are some houses that sort of meet this criteria with brick on all sides at New Hampshire and Rittenhouse, NW and sort of walking distance to Ft. Totten Metro. But those are townhouses, not SFH, and they don't have mature trees or plantings. They barely have yards or room for a deck. They have a paved driveway, but those driveways are about 15' feet long because they just attach the garage to the alley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This person is FOS:

I have all of that and more in my McCraftsman built in 2018, and it was all designed into the house. I also have sound dampening insulation in every room.

How would you have old growth trees and shrubs within one year?! And where does one build such a SFH house within walking distance to a Metro station? There are some houses that sort of meet this criteria with brick on all sides at New Hampshire and Rittenhouse, NW and sort of walking distance to Ft. Totten Metro. But those are townhouses, not SFH, and they don't have mature trees or plantings. They barely have yards or room for a deck. They have a paved driveway, but those driveways are about 15' feet long because they just attach the garage to the alley.

Really? I just dumped my 2015 McCraftsman after having sunk over 200k in repairs. It seems like builders these days cut so many corners and there's a real cost. I wish I had bought a house that could stand the test of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bought a house built in 1995 and in the last 10 years I've had to:

replace AC unit
replace furnace
replace water heater
get a new oven
replace windows

that's general run of the mill type stuff for ANY non-new construction house. Don't see the big deal in OP.

I think you're on to something...

[Anonymous]

I'm sitting here literally laughing at the new build pundits.You couldn't pay me to buy a house thrown up by Pulte, Dan Ryan, Ryan Brothers, Toll Brothers etc.

They are garbage.

I'm an inspector for a county I won't name and I'm onsite with the project managers Tues-Thurs every week signing off on permits. It's about 45% of he time when they actually do something right. The months-long delays your new house has had? You can thank me.

It's because your builder used combustibles in the chimney chase, or had non GFCIs in wet locations, or didn't have dedicated circuits for sump pumps or used 2x4s in load bearing walls, or didn't install any felt on the roof decking, or had exhaust venting into wall cavities, or had live outlets buried behind new drywall, or used all the warped lumber on 'your' house because it was a spec build and not built for a buyer.

It's garbage. If you want quality by old (older than 70 years) and retrofit the major systems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sitting here literally laughing at the new build pundits.You couldn't pay me to buy a house thrown up by Pulte, Dan Ryan, Ryan Brothers, Toll Brothers etc.

They are garbage.

I'm an inspector for a county I won't name and I'm onsite with the project managers Tues-Thurs every week signing off on permits. It's about 45% of he time when they actually do something right. The months-long delays your new house has had? You can thank me.

It's because your builder used combustibles in the chimney chase, or had non GFCIs in wet locations, or didn't have dedicated circuits for sump pumps or used 2x4s in load bearing walls, or didn't install any felt on the roof decking, or had exhaust venting into wall cavities, or had live outlets buried behind new drywall, or used all the warped lumber on 'your' house because it was a spec build and not built for a buyer.

It's garbage. If you want quality by old (older than 70 years) and retrofit the major systems.

Thank you for what you do! Can you close yourself and send some to DCRA????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sitting here literally laughing at the new build pundits.You couldn't pay me to buy a house thrown up by Pulte, Dan Ryan, Ryan Brothers, Toll Brothers etc.

They are garbage.

I'm an inspector for a county I won't name and I'm onsite with the project managers Tues-Thurs every week signing off on permits. It's about 45% of he time when they actually do something right. The months-long delays your new house has had? You can thank me.

It's because your builder used combustibles in the chimney chase, or had non GFCIs in wet locations, or didn't have dedicated circuits for sump pumps or used 2x4s in load bearing walls, or didn't install any felt on the roof decking, or had exhaust venting into wall cavities, or had live outlets buried behind new drywall, or used all the warped lumber on 'your' house because it was a spec build and not built for a buyer.

It's garbage. If you want quality by old (older than 70 years) and retrofit the major systems.

Thank you for what you do! Can you close yourself and send some to DCRA????

Oops, meant clone, not close!

[Anonymous]

my house is 100 years old and it has been crappy since it was new because it was cheap then and it’s cheap now, where is my thread

[Anonymous]

I live in an 80-year-old house, and yes, things break or wear out. I've replaced most of the appliances, all of the windows and the AC condenser since I moved in. I've also replaced most of the outlets, light fixtures and faucets and the inner workings of both toilets. A neighbor's tree fell on the house, necessitating a partial roof replacement, siding, drywall and flooring replacement and one very expensive bay window that had some wood rot discovered when replacing damaged siding.

This is home ownership.

If I bought a newer house, eventually the newer house would need all that stuff too. And at my price point, buying a newer house would have involved living at least 30 minutes further from DC, and I've BTDT. Commuting sucks. I'd rather have old house/great commute than new house/sucky commute. If you have the money for new and great commute, more power to you.

[Anonymous]

OP, you are just stressed because you have really young kids, a job, and a life.

All houses have some kind of problem. Also, it sounds like you just bought a crappy, not new house, not a truly old house. No old home would have carpet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sitting here literally laughing at the new build pundits.You couldn't pay me to buy a house thrown up by Pulte, Dan Ryan, Ryan Brothers, Toll Brothers etc.

They are garbage.

I'm an inspector for a county I won't name and I'm onsite with the project managers Tues-Thurs every week signing off on permits. It's about 45% of he time when they actually do something right. The months-long delays your new house has had? You can thank me.

It's because your builder used combustibles in the chimney chase, or had non GFCIs in wet locations, or didn't have dedicated circuits for sump pumps or used 2x4s in load bearing walls, or didn't install any felt on the roof decking, or had exhaust venting into wall cavities, or had live outlets buried behind new drywall, or used all the warped lumber on 'your' house because it was a spec build and not built for a buyer.

It's garbage. If you want quality by old (older than 70 years) and retrofit the major systems.

I totally agree with this. I have an older home, just turned 70 this year and while we had to redo kitchen and one bathroom so far, the house is really sound. The way they built houses back in the day cant be beat IMO. Our second bathroom just started leaking and making a mess but its part of it. I know people with much newer builds and have window issues and leaks already. The only thing i wished is that we squeezed a bit more to get another bedroom when we purchased. We will more than likely have to do an addition in the next few years as the kids grown.

[Anonymous]

Just for sheets and geeglez I asked a realtor friend who knows my 110 year old house very well what she thought it was worth and she said 3.25 - 3.75. Said it was as well made as they come in a great neighborhood with all the right upgrades.

[Anonymous]

My house is 113 years old and on top of that, had sat empty for over a decade before we bought. The first year was a nightmare, I honestly felt like we should just start sleeping at Home Depot because we were there so often. It slowly stopped though and now that its all in working order, I love it dearly. We only have the typical maintenance you would have in any house. I love our radiators, I love our squaeky floors, I love imagining a century of people putting their hand exactly where I do on the banister. Inlove thinking about how many babies learned to walk on the floors my bababies crawled on, and how they grew up.

The first year is tough. Give it a little time and I think you'll come to love ot too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Considering my brother was just hired to dig a foundation of a "new custom build" in Arlington where the people are surely paying well over 2M for the home and he has never in his life dug a foundation, I'm not too confident in new builds. I wouldn't allow my brother to remodel batheoom let alone dig a foundation. I have zero faith in new construction in this area. It is so hard to find workers to do anything, thr criteria is a heartbeat and that's all.

Many on the crews of current builders are semi-skilled and learning on the job. More important is the fact that there’s no concept of basic building standards in Guatemala and Honduras.

Those who built the homes that some call s-shacks were skilled, knew what they were doing, and cared about quality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like many on here, we thought the 6,000 sft new build craftman were gaudy and too large, boy did I turn out to be wrong.

I just had our number two and my son is now 3 year old. Even with a nanny, DH and I are absolutely exhausted on the weekend from running repairs and meeting contractors for all sorts of work that needed to be done all over the place. We had our fridge and oven break over the course of the same month, our fridge installation had some issues because the waterlines were setup poorly in the house. Overtime, we found moldy spots in the carpeting and had to just live with it because putting hardwood floors is an investment we would never get our money back on. There were multiple leak on the roof that had to be patched. Our water heater had some issues despite being just 5 years old and our AC system had shorts, which we found was possibly due to the way the wiring is done in the house. If I had to do it all over again, I would just bite the costs and live in a new/new-ish build.

I am really on the verge of losing it even with a nanny. I feel like even having a full butler won't make up for the headache of owning these old homes. My husband tried to convince me to go for a new build but I wanted to budget some cushion for our retirement and vacation. Boy do I regret it now.

If you have young kids, i repeat, do not, ever buy an old house. You are better off renting in an apartment with repair on 24/7 standby or even a new townhouse. If you can stretch it, just buy a new build, the peace of mind of things working at least for the next 10 years is worth your sanity.

We live in a hundred-year-old house, but it was properly cared for over the decades. In the time I've lived here I have no regrets. I had previously owned a new build but my sense was the builder used high-end finishes but cut costs other places wherever they could. For example, they didn't bother with green board in the bathrooms but used Carrera marble tile. My old house, however, was built to last. We don't need green boad because the floor beneath the tile in the bathrooms is concrete.

You're an idiot, green board doesn't go under the floor. Don't ever comment on anything about house quality or build you know nothing and are making everyone around you dumber.

Is there any reason to be so offensive? Or, are you just pissed because the poster’s experience has made him conclude that old is better than new?