Buying an old house regret

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bought a 100+ yr-old Tudor in a very nice DMV neighborhood that is a short walk to Metro and nice grocery stores, restaurants, and shops. The roof was only about 3 years old, the windows had been replaced with good quality double panes, bricks had been repointed. Unlike just about any new construction, I have brick on every side of my house. Not a inch of vinyl siding on it. I have lots of shade trees that are probably at least 50 years old, a gorgeous front and back yard with expensive hard-scaping and plantings. Large deck in very good condition. Huge driveway with new concrete that was done about 3 years before I bought the house. I have nice wooden privacy fencing all around my rear and side yard. Basketball hoop above the separate garage for the kids. Inside the garage are all those hooks and shelves for storage, so I didn't have to buy and install all of that. I have lights that run throughout the backyard deck and garden area just off the ground for that fancy landscape lighting effect. The fireplace had been converted to gas so I just click a remote control switch and I have a fire whenever I feel like it.

I bought a new range and dishwasher before the older ones gave out, and kept the new-ish stainless fridge. Gorgeous hardwood floors throughout the house (no gross cheap carpet in bedrooms) were freshly finished when I bought it. HVAC is only about 3 years old. Besides the two appliances I replaced, which actually weren't broken, I haven't done any other repairs in the 2+ years I've lived here. I did choose to paint some rooms since I felt all the neutral colors were boring. And I replaced several light fixtures to match my personal style. I just did those one at a time as I found the perfect ones. There was no rush since they weren't broken. My electric box was updated at some point so it's got capacity for all the modern electronics we use. Most of my closets already had ample cabinets and hooks installed for efficient storage and the bedrooms have nice wood built ins. Lots of my electric plugs have the USB chargers in them. The lights have dimmers and the outside porch lights all have those dawn to dusk sensors.

My house is almost sound proof. The brick, combined with plaster walls, is great insulation and keeps out noise. Besides the amazing location, there's the Wow! factor when people walk into my house and see the beautiful curved stair railing and the high end trims and solid wood doors. All the little details like those tiny windows with diamond shaped inserts, the real shutters, the wrought iron instead of cheap aluminum exterior railings, and the perfectly trimmed cherry and magnolia trees that took decades to mature are what make my house that has stood for over a century so appealing.

I don't believe that only 100+ yr-old Tudors are attractive. I once lived in an Eichler house in Palo Alto and I absolutely loved that sort of layout and the large windows. I think those were built in the 1970s. If I were to build a new house today, I'd have the architect use an Eichler as the starting point for my design. However, I don't think I'd build one here where the winters are so cold and the summers so hot.

I'm so jealous! I foolishly bought this 2015 mccraftsman and have had nothing but problems. I had to sink 30k into fixing the foundation and 20k into repairs that resulted from a burst pipe. Even had to repalce a 3 year old AC unit that burnt out because it wasn't installed correctly.

[Anonymous]

OP, it really can go both ways.

Our neighbors bought a new build around the corner from us. Right after the 1 year warranty expired their basement massively flooded. It resulted in a $75k home insurance claim to gut and redo their finished basement. The homeowners then had to invest $50k of their own money to fix the exterior drainage, and then another $10k to redo the landscaping that was destroyed when doing the drainage work. A massive headache.

Our old house had tons of issues when we purchased, but most were minor enough that my husband could do the repairs himself. The prior owner had done zero maintenance for the prior 10 years. (We knew this when we purchased and got a good deal, though we did not fully appreciate the extent of the issues.) We had a tough 2 years while we addressed those issues, but we have been in much better shape since then, with only minor issues.

With our prior house built in 1924, the house had been well maintained and we didnt have significant issues. It was a great house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who are the good builders?

They all died after building the 75+ year old homes. All new builds and builders are crap.

I built my own 10ksq ft custom home. I'm an engineer by profession so acted as the project manager. I used the best materials (yes those are superior to the old homes people talk about and I can go on and on about this) and carefully selected and MICROmanaged the labor. I was on site EVERY DAY and a good friend filled in as well. Before embarking on this, I bid out the work and spoke to many local custom builders. While the custom builders product is superior to the production builders, there are many compromises. The old saying is true. If you want to do it right, you need to do it yourself.

[Anonymous]

I have a 110 year old house (1909). The outer walls are 2 to 3 feet thick made from very attractive field stone. Surprisingly, the support structure is steel girders and cement. The rooms have 10 foot ceilings but there are almost 2 feet between the ceiling and the floor on the next which allows for said steel and cement infrastructure. The floors are wide plank oak (10-12 inches) that are 2 plus inches thick and a couple of rooms have solid slate flooring. Each of the 4 fireplaces is made from the same field stone and 2 of them are 4.5 x 7 feet. Roof is slate.

We had to change out windows and electrical over the years and reconfigured the kitchen. Other items had been well maintained and or appropriately replaced. There is no new build anywhere that is as solid as this house. With the updates, we have the best of both worlds.

[Anonymous]

Love old houses. Grew up in a 1910 ish house. Still miss it.

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

You are so right, OP. The ONLY way to avoid all your problems is to spend 2x of one’s housing budget on a brand new home. Replacing roofs or carpets and especially kitchen appliances is ALWAYS more expensive and makes less sense than just simply tanking 1 extra million into the home you will live in - a much more affordable option. And you forgot to mention that remodeled older homes simply don’t exist, they are all fixer upper money pits, and you never know what things may need replacement or at their end of life before you buy a home, so you are inevitably surprised by all the fast mounting costs for the suddenly leaking roofs, carpets that start growing mold right after you move in, or kitchen appliances that look brand new but somehow start failing all at once.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[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.

Only a woman who has coasted thru life on her looks or sex would think like this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
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.

I agree with OP. Avoid old houses if you can. Maintenance costs will eat all your savings. People always underestimate the cost of maintenance.
A friend of mine bought a house for $500k and sold it for $1.2M 20 years later. You would think that this is a $700k gain there.
Not so fast. They realized that they spent more than $300k to maintain and renovate this house over the years. Now you are looking at only $400k.
Buy a new house and you won't have that problem.

I agree with the young kids part. I didn’t want to move to a house and have to deal with maintenance costs every 5 minutes while working and maintaining a new baby and working on top of that. We just got a new build for that reason and love it. In a few years we’ll wait to have some kids and move out in 5-10 years and rent out the current house and use equity to get a bigger home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Only a woman who has coasted thru life on her looks or sex would think like this

That's a little more effective trolling - you might get some responses to this. Good job!

[Anonymous]

The people saying they will rent out their currently new-build house in a several years -- Do they realize that if they continue owning these houses, those appliances and systems will start to fail in 10 years, and will still need to be replaced or repaired by them within that 10 year period? Since when do renters manage the repairs? Is this intentionally just a deferred maintenance choice?

The person who admittedly micro-managed and spent on expensive materials on his new build house -- What's your point? Of course anybody with a ton of money, time, and construction knowledge could build a new house to rival the quality of a well-built older house. Since 999 out of 1,000 people could not do this, it's quite pointless info to share here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The people saying they will rent out their currently new-build house in a several years -- Do they realize that if they continue owning these houses, those appliances and systems will start to fail in 10 years, and will still need to be replaced or repaired by them within that 10 year period? Since when do renters manage the repairs? Is this intentionally just a deferred maintenance choice?

Well, yes, of course. I’d replace and repair everything before turning it into a rental. appliances that need to be replaced overtime like the fridge and other things. But it’s not that big of a concern.

[Anonymous]

I think the lesson for newbies reading this thread should take away is that appliances are not the same thing as the house structure itself. And neither has anything to do with the location of the house. When you walk into a prospective house, have at your disposal the cost to replace each of the critical appliances. That way, if you notice that an appliance looks older, you can work into your calculations the cost of replacing it. You can even take photos of the labels on the appliances that will give you info on their age. (You can get this info by walking through any Lowes or Home Depot and jotting down the prices of the appliances you'd like.) If you've never owned a SFH, gather some information from local friends who have paid for landscaping services to estimate what it will cost to buy and grow a landscape and how long that will take. The same is true for fencing. Most people have no idea whatsoever how much each little plant costs, or that many of those die and need to be replaced with something else. Having a yard leveled or terraced, or having draining put into a flat yard are all very expensive endeavors but these are very rarely provided in new construction prices.