Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends. Old homes have work but I fine most new homes go be poorly built.

To all the commenters about mead and asbestos those can be dealt with. Don’t you think all the new cheap materials will in future have major issues like lead and asbestos. Remember the drywall issues years ago? I do!

My grandmother owns a home from the 1700s. It’s a lot of work but it is so well built. They didn’t add central air but it stays pretty cool. They have window air conditioners on the second and third floor, don’t need on the 1st.

I own a home from early 1900s. We did a big Reno and I find our home go be well built. We added on and paid good money but the new area of the home is hotter in the summer and colder in winter than the older part of the home (that we will renovated).

Get a good inspector and look into electrical and plumbing. I redid our electrical and plumbing and it was not cheap. The gas company and water company also redid both laterals.

Lol wrong most new homes are built 10000% better because of Required building codes and inspections. Old homes are terrible and exempt from safety codes

Anonymous wrote:Do lead check swabs in the windowsills to see if it has lead paint remnants. Unless the windows are all new.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends. Old homes have work but I fine most new homes go be poorly built.

To all the commenters about mead and asbestos those can be dealt with. Don’t you think all the new cheap materials will in future have major issues like lead and asbestos. Remember the drywall issues years ago? I do!

My grandmother owns a home from the 1700s. It’s a lot of work but it is so well built. They didn’t add central air but it stays pretty cool. They have window air conditioners on the second and third floor, don’t need on the 1st.

I own a home from early 1900s. We did a big Reno and I find our home go be well built. We added on and paid good money but the new area of the home is hotter in the summer and colder in winter than the older part of the home (that we will renovated).

Get a good inspector and look into electrical and plumbing. I redid our electrical and plumbing and it was not cheap. The gas company and water company also redid both laterals.

Lol wrong most new homes are built 10000% better because of Required building codes and inspections. Old homes are terrible and exempt from safety codes

Anonymous wrote:LOL at the lead comments. Any house built before 1978 will have lead everywhere.

Anonymous wrote:It depends. Old homes have work but I fine most new homes go be poorly built.

To all the commenters about mead and asbestos those can be dealt with. Don’t you think all the new cheap materials will in future have major issues like lead and asbestos. Remember the drywall issues years ago? I do!

My grandmother owns a home from the 1700s. It’s a lot of work but it is so well built. They didn’t add central air but it stays pretty cool. They have window air conditioners on the second and third floor, don’t need on the 1st.

I own a home from early 1900s. We did a big Reno and I find our home go be well built. We added on and paid good money but the new area of the home is hotter in the summer and colder in winter than the older part of the home (that we will renovated).

Get a good inspector and look into electrical and plumbing. I redid our electrical and plumbing and it was not cheap. The gas company and water company also redid both laterals.

Anonymous wrote:The term historic house is almost meaningless, it just means anything above a certain age (let's assume anything built before the 1960). It can be a 18th century farmhouse, it can be a grand 1880s Queen Anne rowhouse, it can be a 1920s stone tudor or colonial, or a 1940 brick box.

What's important is how the house has been maintained over the years. Not every historic house is an estate sale. Not every house is a money pit. Many have been beautifully updated and are in better shape than any new build. I can walk into any older house and immediately know what kind of maintenance will be required and it comes down to how the house was built and the care it's had over the years. I understand not everyone is capable of doing this and I had the virtue of growing up in older houses in older neighborhoods ....

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP, and I guess we still have to gauge what “updated” means - yes, new kitchen and bathrooms, but it looks like previous owners (flippers) put a lot of money into updating the property. If it’s more fully updated - and gosh I hope it is - should we still anticipate headaches/needing to provide costly updates ourselves? (I’m talking structural/foundational things like the foundation, electrical, plumbing etc - if these are all relatively new, can we trust that we’re generally in the clear? FWIW I never intended to own an old home but in our very limited inventory town, it’s either 100+ year old homes or new, ticky-tacky new builds. I would very much like to avoid the latter.)

I was the PP who mentioned buying the 1920s bungalow with structural issues. It was flipped by a flipper who told us at the time of purchase all electrical and plumbing was new. Didn’t end up being the case once we had a big leak and had to rip open walls. Saw quickly the only “new” electrical and plumbing was what was in our faces - eg anything behind walls hadn’t been touched. The electrician we hired to fix some of it said the flipper must have hired random guys from the 7-Eleven because none of the new stuff was to code either.

So all that said - look at permits for the property - that will tell you what has and hasn’t been updated properly. If you don’t see permits for the big stuff and it’s been updated recently, run. We did check permits, didn’t see any, said “Hey that’s BAU in Arlington” and have paid the price for that decision (literally). All said and done we’ll need to put another $150-250K in.

Also make sure to hire an actual structural engineer (PE) if there’s a hint of structural concerns. Make sure they are an actual PE licensed with the state.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP, and I guess we still have to gauge what “updated” means - yes, new kitchen and bathrooms, but it looks like previous owners (flippers) put a lot of money into updating the property. If it’s more fully updated - and gosh I hope it is - should we still anticipate headaches/needing to provide costly updates ourselves? (I’m talking structural/foundational things like the foundation, electrical, plumbing etc - if these are all relatively new, can we trust that we’re generally in the clear? FWIW I never intended to own an old home but in our very limited inventory town, it’s either 100+ year old homes or new, ticky-tacky new builds. I would very much like to avoid the latter.)

I was the PP who mentioned buying the 1920s bungalow with structural issues. It was flipped by a flipper who told us at the time of purchase all electrical and plumbing was new. Didn’t end up being the case once we had a big leak and had to rip open walls. Saw quickly the only “new” electrical and plumbing was what was in our faces - eg anything behind walls hadn’t been touched. The electrician we hired to fix some of it said the flipper must have hired random guys from the 7-Eleven because none of the new stuff was to code either.

So all that said - look at permits for the property - that will tell you what has and hasn’t been updated properly. If you don’t see permits for the big stuff and it’s been updated recently, run. We did check permits, didn’t see any, said “Hey that’s BAU in Arlington” and have paid the price for that decision (literally). All said and done we’ll need to put another $150-250K in.

Also make sure to hire an actual structural engineer (PE) if there’s a hint of structural concerns. Make sure they are an actual PE licensed with the state.