Is this the fate of all trendy, builder-grade homes?
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Anonymous
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My friend moved into a brand new build in 2016. It was so trendy and in style, I remember being so envious.
She recently informed me she’s moving back home and put her house up for sale. Nosily, I went in search of the listing on Zillow and I was in SHOCK by how dated everything looked, and it’s only been 7 years! We live in a nearly 100yo home that we classically updated in a transitional style back in 2009, and I’m blown away by the comparison. Those cheap builder-grade on-trend elements just don’t age well. What a shame! I’m just trying to imagine all the modern farm houses and those black and white shiplap-style houses in ten years. |
Anonymous
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My boss lives in a Dan Ryan house and HATES it. Still a 500k house in a MCOL area. No insulation and cheap finishes galore.
These houses do not age well. |
Anonymous
What are those on-trend elements that didn't age well? Like farmhouse style shiplap? |
Anonymous
+1 I'm having a hard time on what is so dated in only 7 years. My laptop is older than that. |
Anonymous
cool story. You know those "trendy" things that make farmhouse are just veneer and can be changed easily, with less effort and cost than rehabbing a 100-year-old shi!shack. In fact you admit yourself that the 100 year old shi!tshack needed rehabbing which includes core systems, building code, and you can't change things like ceiling heights, waterproofing, layouts as easily |
Anonymous
I guess you’d just have to see it. Way too trendy in a way that’s just… not now, and looks dated. Not BAD, just trapped in 2016. |
Anonymous
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Most new houses are going to dip in value (relative to overall appreciation in the area, just in terms of the house itself) I think mainly between 10 and 30 years or so. Finishes get dated and worn and major systems start needing replacement.
It’s especially true when there’s a big new neighborhood where all the houses are the same age partly also because you have more demographic bulges when a neighborhood is new that even out over time. A six year old house should still look pretty new though. But if it was done poorly or cheaply of course it will still be what it is. |
Anonymous
Your McMansion is gaudy and tacky. But if it makes you feel better to call my place that, I can take it. Can’t wait to see your place in 100 years! |
Anonymous
| OP I’m LOLing that you said you “classically updated” your house. |
Anonymous
| “Transitional” style lol. I’m not if someone who has decor resembling a Marriott is in any position to judge her friend’s interior design. |
Anonymous
DP but I like to just look down on everyone’s house, including my own, and that way I’m a pretty equal opportunity hater. |
Anonymous
I think this is the case for a lot of new builds. They just aren't very sturdy. They kind of feel like they are made out of cardboard with a thin veneer of of the moment finishes. |
Anonymous
Your right. I should have totally gone full modern in my 1920s townhouse. You’re insane. Maybe my friend’s house is just in a “classic ‘16” style. |
Anonymous
I'll take a 1920s sh!tstack that has 100 years worth of maintenance and upgrades over a 7 year old builder grade home |
Anonymous
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There's an okay way of doing it and a bad way of doing it. I mean, if they are going to build homes, they have to have some kind of design choices, and there is nothing wrong with choosing what is currently in style.
But you should never choose a trendy design choice over practical livability or functional concerns, and when you build houses on spec, you should keep design choices minimal and unobtrusive. We live in a home that was built by a developer in 2013, and it doesn't look dated. It has white marble counters in the kitchen and bathrooms, hardwoods (dark finish but a neutral brown - not cherry or blonde) throughout the house (white tile in the bathrooms), and brushed nickel hardware throughout. Stainless steel appliances. Cabinets are white shaker style. All of this was the developers choice and it's fine. We've done things like replaced most of the light fixtures (what was hear was all super modern looking but cheap, like probably whatever they could get in bulk, and we've replaced with more classic lighting. We've painted throughout, done some wallpaper in the foyer. I think we could sell tomorrow and the only thing in our house that looks a little dated to me is the backsplash in the kitchen, but due to the design of the kitchen it's only a relatively small area and it doesn't look awful (neutral tone small mosaic tile with some color variation), just probably not what someone would pick in 2023. What I see in other developer-built houses that I am glad we sought to avoid when we bought: any kind of sliding "barn door", vessel sinks anywhere including powder rooms, engineered hardwoods in gray or very light finishes, trendy flooring patterns, super modern details like floating stairs. Some of that stuff looks good in a home that is thoughtfully designed to the taste of a specific homeowner (I've seen some nice herringbone flooring, for instance) but it's too aggressive of a design choice for a developer to choose and, since they will go with builder grade everything, is likely to look bad quickly. The only builder grade finish that actually annoyed me was the paint. They used such an aggressively cheap matte paint that we had to repaint every single square inch of the house, even places where we went with the same color but had to use a higher grade paint just for functionality. The original paint job marked up with the slightest contact and was impossible to clean. We painted the master bedroom, living, dining, and kitchen when we moved in, but couldn't decide on the rest of the house right away and so lived with that awful paint for 2 years while we did the other rooms piecemeal. I was so glad when we finally covered up the last of it. |