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punk rebel ecks posted:Thanks for the responses. There's not any particularly good age to buy a house, it all comes down to whether you want to buy, if it makes logistical sense, and if it makes financial sense. It sounds like you want to buy a house, but it sounds like you don't have any particular location in mind, so that's problematic unless you're absurdly rich and don't have to worry about flushing a bunch of realtor fees down the toilet. If you are thinking about the financial repercussions then maybe find a place that you really want to settle down in first, a city that you wouldn't mind living in for the next 5+ years, and then check if it makes financial sense (do you have a 20% down payment and enough income to pay your mortgage without becoming house poor? do you have enough income to also pay PMI if you don't have 20% down? ) Markets go up and down, and the entire west coast is going through a price bubble that will definitely pop eventually. Maybe this means that you can't afford to buy a house next year, but maybe you would a few years after that.
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Mar 3, 2018 22:00
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Whether or not to buy a house is not just a financial decision. I mentioned it being a lifestyle choice, and I wasn't kidding about that. Consider:
The thing is, when you buy a home, you are potentially locking yourself into that specific home in that specific location for a long time. There's the possibility it goes up in value and you'll be able to quickly sell into a hot market whenever your priorities change and you decide to move... but there's also the possibility that the value declines or stays flat, and you'll have to bring tens of thousands of dollars (or more) to the table just to walk away with nothing after a sale, too. The risks aren't just market-bsaed, either: you could find yourself with an unforseen $50k repair needed just to reasonably sell, which means you need to save money for two more years before you can sell without taking a huge loss. Houses have huge transactional costs to buy and sell, they have huge maintenance costs, they're heavily taxed, and it typically takes at least a month or two to sell them. These are all negative attributes for an investment. Costly, illiquid assets subject to highly localized as well as national market trends are scary investments. Yes, there are big money investors who make lots of money in real estate, but a big part of their approach is diversifying risk by buying in many different markets, they can pay cash which speeds up the process and lowers transaction costs... and, occasionally, they lose billions of dollars in a market collapse. So you have to consider not only the risk of this purchase as an investment (if you will never ever sell under any circumstance, then you can treat it like a one-time purchase, but that is probably not something you can be certain of really), but also the risk that you'll be burdened with choosing between making a financially bad decision to sell at a bad time, or for a bad price, vs. staying with a house that is no longer suitable for your lifestyle, income, family, work, or desire to maintain. That's why it's really hard to give a rule of thumb. For your own circumstances... you're not even sure what city you want to live in. It sounds like you don't have strong community ties built up somewhere that you're sure you'll want to keep for a long time. You may also not have a career position at an employer that you're confident you'll be keeping for at least 5-10 years. I'm guessing you also don't have kids... but a lot can change in the next ten years, right? Jobs, relationships, kids... it might not be best to tie yourself to a house until you've got those things figured out, even if that means renting for more than five years.
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Mar 3, 2018 22:36
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This is a side-argument so I'll put it in a different post, but:QuarkJets posted:Markets go up and down, and the entire west coast is going through a price bubble that will definitely pop eventually. Maybe this means that you can't afford to buy a house next year, but maybe you would a few years after that. This is A) probably not true, but also B) a really terrible idea to try to time the housing market. The west coast is definitely going through a period of rising house prices. That's not the same thing as a bubble, though: bubbles are driven by speculation, and nothing else; they collapse when speculators lose confidence. The West Coast is experiencing actual rising demand that is unmet by supply. If demand drops (such as due to a recession) or supply increases (lots more construction), that could certainly reverse the trend... but not in the same way as a bubble popping. One absolutely consistent attribute of the periodic financial downturns in the US is that they are always different. The next downturn will not look like the last downturn. And the west coast's popularity is not being driven by speculative forces: it's a long-term trend of population movement related to climate, culture, politics, regional employment opportunities, and more. There's not going to be another sub-prime mortgage collapse in the next decade to trigger default on millions of ARM-based and liar loans taken out by people who simultaneously lose their jobs while the auto industry goes bankrupt, exactly like in 2007. Housing prices on the west coast may never see another drop like 2007-10. In the next recession, there's a good chances prices merely flatten, perhaps with some softness in specific segments or neighborhoods or cities while other cities/segments/neighborhoods stay hot. There's a good chance that prices actually rise during the next recession, if CA/OR/WA have more or better jobs than other states, triggering an increase in immigration and thus demand. On top of that, though, timing the housing market is a good way to gently caress up. Buying is risky. You can't call the top of the market any more than you can call the bottom of the market. You could buy on the first year's drop of a market that will drop and stagnate for ten more years. You could also wait too long, and see a market permanently grow out of reach. Instead of treating your house purchase like a stock market gamble, you should make your decision based on whether you're ready to buy now, where you want to live now, what you can afford to buy now in that place, and if those things all add up to it being possible, then buy. If you're happy with your home, its location, and your financial situation after making the purchase, then it no longer matters as much whether the house loses or gains value on-paper, because it's a place you live in, not a stock you're trying to make a profit on. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Mar 3, 2018 |
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Mar 3, 2018 22:44
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There's a lot of good stuff in this thread. I won't even consider thinking about housing until I am at that stage of my life.
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Mar 3, 2018 23:03
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Yea, this thread has been really helpful. We live in a HCOL area where desirable houses are sold within days of going on market. My wife and I are at the beginning of our careers. We have a solid combined income, but are nowhere near having a 20% down payment since we focused on paying off student loans these past few years. I think we've come to terms with renting for the next 5-7 years, and this thread has really helped with that. In the meantime we'll focus on retirement savings and slowly building up a cash reserve for a future down payment when our kids are elementary school aged.
grenada fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Mar 3, 2018 |
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Mar 3, 2018 23:25
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In a lot of circumstances renting makes more sense than people over 50 think it does. Personally the no-details-known guideline I would give to start the thought process would be that if any two of these three are true: 1. You are not absolutely certain you're going to live in this area for at least the next five (better yet, ten) years 2. You are not absolutely certain your needs won't outgrow your current needs (i.e., marriage/children) for at least the next five (better yet, ten) years 3. You know nothing about how to do basic home repair things like AC/heater work, plumbing, painting, flooring, etc. yourself and aren't interested in learning Then you should probably rent for now unless you have a very good, very specific reason not to. Also if you are going to buy for the first time, recruit the assistance of someone who's done it many times before and knows where the land mines are. Otherwise you're at high risk of being bent over by your real estate agent, much more so the lawyers and bankers behind the curtain. Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Mar 4, 2018 |
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Mar 4, 2018 00:10
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Eric the Mauve posted:In a lot of circumstances renting makes more sense than people over 50 think it does. It really can be a pathology. My wife's grandmother just lost close to $100k after selling her old place that she bought in 2004 and could no longer maintain due to mobility problems. Put a bunch of updates into an already overpriced house thinking she'd get it all back and then some. So, like I said, she is in her late seventies with health and mobility problems. Perfect time to rent a nice easy to access apartment, or senior living condo or something, right? Nope! Time to Buy Another House! So let's take what you have left after losing your shirt on the next place, and buy a two story townhouse with a basement just because you had too much crap that you couldn't part with. Then, predictably your health doesn't get better, because living alone in a place that's still too big for you isn't exactly a vacation. So two months after you move into this new place, you end up in an assisted living facility anyway. Don't ever feel obligated to take home buying advice from family. Same for college, and car loans.
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Mar 4, 2018 01:16
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LogisticEarth posted:Don't ever feel obligated to take home buying advice from family. Same for college, and car loans. Yeah my mom hosed me during my student loans. $22,000 for one year with a variable interest rate (that is now 9.75%). At least I stopped borrowing after that and now I have good enough credit to consolidate.
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Mar 4, 2018 02:18
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I think old people think houses are great investments at least in part for the same reason they think a hamburger should really still cost fifty cents. That is to say, it's hard to make your brain adjust a wide range of numbers for inflation. So they bought a house for $30k in 1960 and they don't realize that that's exactly the same buying power as $250k today, so if their house is now worth a staggering $300,000, it seems like they built a huge profit when actually they had a pretty loving crap 0.4% annual inflation-adjusted return over a fifty-year horizon. (Back of the envelope math here, of course). And then when you throw in how much money it cost them in taxes and maintenance, and their incredible wealth-building investment actually lost money.
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Mar 4, 2018 02:43
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In 1950, in the US, median home price was around $7,500. Matched back from 2000’s house prices for inflation that would be more like $44K. I don’t think anyone who bought US real estate in 1950 lost money versus inflation. (In other words, median house price increased by 40x, while inflation was 10x.} I don’t have numbers after 2000, but I doubt it undid things that much!
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Mar 4, 2018 03:08
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Lots of people did, but mostly in places like Detroit. I didn't intend my example to represent the average: only to be illustrative of one more reason why you don't need to necessarily listen to the olds when they tell you that real estate is the guaranteed way to build generational wealth. Hell, I'm only in my early 40s and I'm already having a hard time guessing based on gut feels whether $15 is a reasonable amount to pay for lunch or not.
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Mar 4, 2018 03:14
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Leperflesh posted:I think old people think houses are great investments at least in part for the same reason they think a hamburger should really still cost fifty cents. That is to say, it's hard to make your brain adjust a wide range of numbers for inflation. So they bought a house for $30k in 1960 and they don't realize that that's exactly the same buying power as $250k today, so if their house is now worth a staggering $300,000, it seems like they built a huge profit when actually they had a pretty loving crap 0.4% annual inflation-adjusted return over a fifty-year horizon. (Back of the envelope math here, of course). And then when you throw in how much money it cost them in taxes and maintenance, and their incredible wealth-building investment actually lost money. Not nearly as much as paying all that money in rent for 60 years and owning nothing at the end of it, though. I mean I just said that there are sometimes good reasons to rent, but there are a lot of good reasons to buy too. Buying and managing and flipping a bunch of real estate is a great way to turn $1 million into $10 million if you have the knack for it. If you buy one house and live in it, that's not an "investment" in the sense it's going to make you rich in a few decades. Way way better than renting though--IF you're actually going to live there for a while and take care of it.
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Mar 4, 2018 03:46
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Leperflesh posted:Lots of people did, but mostly in places like Detroit. How so? As of last year Detroit was back within 10% of their all-time (2006) peak. Any real estate that even existed in 1950 and is still a residential house is doing more than fine. Do you have an example of a neighbourhood in Detroit that saw sub-inflation gains over the last 60 years?
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Mar 4, 2018 04:18
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punk rebel ecks posted:I have a few questions: It depends on the specifics of your situation. The ny times rent vs buy calc is a good way to compare this once you know the specifics from your situation. If you have 20% down saved, great credit, and stable work history, and you are comparing buying a house and renting a house, the break even is 5-7 years in most of the US. If you can rent a rent controlled apartment in san francisco and rent out the extra bedroom to a friend it will be cheaper than buying a home indefinitely.
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Mar 4, 2018 04:19
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Eric the Mauve posted:Not nearly as much as paying all that money in rent for 60 years and owning nothing at the end of it, though. I mean I just said that there are sometimes good reasons to rent, but there are a lot of good reasons to buy too. Didn't most of the baby boomers wind up not really owning anything anyway, by borrowing against equity over and over? In the neighborhood where I grew up this was what happened to literally everyone except my parents so I assume it's somewhat common If you're a BWM type then I think buying a house is probably a bad idea, even if you can afford it, because BWM types see the equity just sitting there and can't help themselves
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Mar 4, 2018 04:27
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FWIW I think if you keep this stuff in mind as you live your life it'll end up resolving itself one way or the other. I couldn't ever really justify owning over renting until suddenly I could and it made sense. In my case I got married and got a good job, and if neither of those things happened I would have had no idea if I should rent or buy besides that kind of "uhh I probably should own property, shouldn't I? Or no? It's good, right?" anxiety that accretes. Anyway I'm finally able to come up for air after the last ~2 weeks of trench warfare trying to get seller's credits. The concession we ended up making to get to a number we liked was to move up the timetable, so I'm closing in 15 days  . Finally started to feel a little excited now that the finish line is in sight.
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Mar 4, 2018 05:02
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Subjunctive posted:How so? As of last year Detroit was back within 10% of their all-time (2006) peak. Any real estate that even existed in 1950 and is still a residential house is doing more than fine. I can show you neighborhood after neighborhood that don't exist anymore so... yes? Any of these houses, to start with, as well. https://buildingdetroit.org/
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Mar 4, 2018 06:19
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Sale completion date set for Thursday. Can't wait! Between us my girlfriend and I have been paying for 2 homes in London for over a year while selling. So much money wasted when buyers have pulled out of the sale.
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Mar 4, 2018 12:50
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Yea, life is way too complex to optimize every dollar every day towards some goal, but the best you can do is constantly be aware of the environment and trends and try to stay a bit further ahead of the general public. For example, although a house is a deeply personal purchase, rates are going up, so that becomes a thing to keep in mind if you find you are on the fence. Same goes for what trends you may be seeing in your particular geographic area on terms of housing fatigue or mania. Build that knowledge so you have a more gut feeling about what seems right and what seems wrong on the big picture. Point being there is never not enough research you can do on the house and property itself to ensure you are making a purchase that is safer than it is riskier (this also goes for your own personal tastes if you plan to be in long term). I have seen a few friends recently who have "settled" on a house and can't get past it or have jumped right in and bought house #1 and regret it. Crazyweasel fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Mar 4, 2018 |
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Mar 4, 2018 14:59
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LogisticEarth posted:If you see something like that stairway to the basement, it's always a red flag. Proceed with extreme caution. I'd recommend ductless mini splits as a happy medium between window units and retrofitting central air.
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Mar 4, 2018 20:23
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Re: settling: I'm so very glad we didn't settle and just kept looking at more houses when we got to an impasse about a house (helpful that this isn't a red-hot market and houses would be on the market for weeks or months rather than hours or days). We got a house with mostly everything we wanted, with a price low enough for us to be able to afford to add in the rest of the stuff we want. I think what happened was that my fiance and I weren't wiling to settle on the same things - I was willing to live in a fixer upper shitbox as long as it was in a good walkable location, while he was gunning for a nice turnkey house for the right price and was less picky about location. One minor regret in our process is that I said I was open to looking at houses in this farther out suburban neighborhood he was really interested in and kept agreeing to look at houses there even though I very quickly decided I wouldn't be happy in a car-dependent neighborhood with no sidewalks and a lovely commute that was far away from our friends. Should have just ruled out that neighborhood from the start. The house we ended up with is in a pretty nice neighborhood (definitely up and coming - originally built as an upscale neighborhood in the 1890s-1910s, so bigger, higher quality houses, but it got really lovely probably in the 70s and is on the upswing again but still super cheap compared to similarly built neighborhoods that never experienced a downswing, and is near a bunch of good stuff like bus routes and shops) and while it definitely needs work because it's 108 years old, it's in pretty great condition otherwise and habitable as is. I'm just happy I have my Victorian dream house and that my fiance was willing to go along with it and didn't write it off because it wasn't turnkey (though still less of a fixer upper than some other places we looked at). We closed three weeks ago and it's still sinking in. Sometimes hard to believe that we own a house now. Guess it'll sink in more when we start doing some remodeling and actually move in once our apartment lease is up.
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Mar 4, 2018 21:25
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What are your guys's takes on "Millennials less likely to buy homes" or "Millennials want to live in cities rather than suburbs" (or apparently not anymore)?
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Mar 4, 2018 21:57
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Millennials don’t buy houses like previous generations because they ain’t got no fuckin money and their wages are stagnant.
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Mar 4, 2018 22:31
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punk rebel ecks posted:What are your guys's takes on "Millennials less likely to buy homes" or "Millennials want to live in cities rather than suburbs" (or apparently not anymore)? Reality is Millennials don't want the houses boomers own at the amount of money boomers owe on them.
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Mar 4, 2018 23:05
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punk rebel ecks posted:What are your guys's takes on "Millennials less likely to buy homes" or "Millennials want to live in cities rather than suburbs" (or apparently not anymore)? On the first point, I want to say it's more of a matter of millennials being less likely to be able to buy a house (in a place they actually want to live) than straight up being less likely to buy a house because they don't want to own a house. The surveys I've read generally point to millennials at least vaguely wanting to buy a house but being unable to do so because it's too expensive/too much student loan debt/etc. Previous generations didn't have to deal with crushing student loan debt. Also, houses in desirable areas are super expensive. I think it depends on area, too. Here in Pittsburgh, my fiance and I join a bunch of our friends who are homeowners because it's very possible to get a decent house in a decent area for cheap, while in the Bay Area, only one couple out of our many friends out there owns a home (and that's only because they lucked out with a short sale condo), and everyone else is still trapped vicious cycle of renting at sky high rates and never being able to save enough for a million dollar shitbox. As for wanting to live in the city rather than the burbs, I'm a millennial and I certainly would rather live in the city than in a suburb. Just posted about how I really disliked the excessively suburban location of some of the houses we looked at. The house we bought is in city proper and the appraisal classified it as "urban" even though all the houses are single family detached with trees and yards and stuff. Lots are smaller and houses are denser, there are buses, and little commercial main street areas nearby, so even though the neighborhood looks suburban, it feels more urban. Also helps that the neighborhood was developed over a century ago when people walked/took the trolley and only a few people maybe owned a car. Generally, being close to things is really nice, especially since I don't own a car (also, car ownership is down among millennials). Our apartment is in a fantastic location only blocks away from the neighborhood commercial district, so I'm super spoiled and didn't want to give up that accessibility. Overall, I think there's a cultural/values shift where the younger generations tend to value a vibrant, diverse community with lots of stuff to do nearby whereas older generations were conditioned to value a big dumb house in a quiet WASPy HOA hellzone. If I had the choice between renting an overpriced studio close to the city center and owning a big dumb exurban tract house, I'd rent the studio.
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Mar 4, 2018 23:11
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I think some of that has to do with the fact that a lot of millennials also have delayed marriage and children due to economic circumstances and are just now getting to a place where they can do those things. If we were childless I would personally like to live in the city right next to the action, but when you have kids you start to think about a yard and decent schools as things you would prefer or even need to have. So I live in a suburb because the schools in the city suck balls and I want my kids to be able to play in the yard.
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Mar 5, 2018 00:23
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It's two things: singleness and college debt. Mostly it's married (or at least cohabiting) people that want to buy houses rather than rent them, and most "millennials" (really all we mean here is "young people" rather than some specific generational category) are only just now getting to the marriage/children stage of their lives. And for younger millennials who might want to buy, banks aren't interested in giving mortgages to people that are already in the high tens of thousands or low hundreds of thousands in top priority ironclad debt.
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Mar 5, 2018 00:28
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therobit posted:I think some of that has to do with the fact that a lot of millennials also have delayed marriage and children due to economic circumstances and are just now getting to a place where they can do those things. If we were childless I would personally like to live in the city right next to the action, but when you have kids you start to think about a yard and decent schools as things you would prefer or even need to have. So I live in a suburb because the schools in the city suck balls and I want my kids to be able to play in the yard. Yeah, I was going to say that Good Schools(TM) are the main thing that will likely draw millennials out into the burbs as they start to have kids. For me, I'd rather be living in the sticks, but unfortunately the schools also suck there so I'm in a suburb. At least it's not a total suburban hellscape though, only like 50% hellscape and I can drive to a state park in five minutes.
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Mar 5, 2018 01:35
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Eric the Mauve posted:most "millennials" (really all we mean here is "young people" rather than some specific generational category) This right here. We have a loose definition of a generation that are doing these thing later because they graduated with more school debt and into a recession. But it's just young_people.txt. Nothing has really changed. The only reason people keep saying the word "millennials" is because that what the people of that particular age range are called at this current time. Every old gently caress has complained about the same things wrong with the younger generation(s) for ever. And it's largely been all the same complaints for decades/centuries. Sure, the specifics change with the times, but it's always the same theme.
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Mar 5, 2018 01:51
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In Australia it’s house prices increasing hugely while wages barely keep ahead of inflation. Also various government policies and tax structures advantage investors and multi-property owners over owner occupiers.
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Mar 5, 2018 02:55
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therobit posted:I think some of that has to do with the fact that a lot of millennials also have delayed marriage and children due to economic circumstances and are just now getting to a place where they can do those things. If we were childless I would personally like to live in the city right next to the action, but when you have kids you start to think about a yard and decent schools as things you would prefer or even need to have. So I live in a suburb because the schools in the city suck balls and I want my kids to be able to play in the yard.
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Mar 5, 2018 04:18
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Motronic posted:This right here. We have a loose definition of a generation that are doing these thing later because they graduated with more school debt and into a recession. But it's just young_people.txt. Nothing has really changed. The only reason people keep saying the word "millennials" is because that what the people of that particular age range are called at this current time. I always kind of see the concept of "generations" as a white/middle-upper class thing.
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Mar 5, 2018 04:45
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Ugh, this process sucks so much. See prior post about discovering the wonderful problems with early EIFS installs, but when we got a contractor to get an estimate on repairs, he discovered that the frames of all the windows, not just the ones on the EIFS siding, are rotted too and likely need to be replaced. And his estimate for repair, not including the rear and side windows, is already like $60k. If it was just the siding alone maybe we could have come up with something, but doubt the seller's going to give us that big a concession on price + closing costs, and we definitely can't eat that cost. It just sucks because we've been watching the market for like a year and houses in this range that are desirable get snapped up in like a day or 2, or through word of mouth beforehand, or some other ridiculousness. Higher and they sit on the market forever, but that's out of our price range. Lower and they're also there forever because they're crap. Ugh.
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Mar 5, 2018 22:57
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Despite all of the advice of this thread, I went ahead and bought a house anyway. Generally it was a smooth process, except when I tried to get the gas turned on the system failed a pressure check. Given that the house previously had the gas on just a few weeks before I closed, this came at a bit of a surprise. Fortunately the bill has been roughly $20-40 over the past few years so it appears to be an exceedingly minor leak. Have someone coming out at the end of the week to check out the system and hopefully fix it without tearing out all of the piping, but it feels odd that this is something completely missed in the inspection process.
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Mar 6, 2018 22:30
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Selious posted:Despite all of the advice of this thread, I went ahead and bought a house anyway. Generally it was a smooth process, except when I tried to get the gas turned on the system failed a pressure check. Given that the house previously had the gas on just a few weeks before I closed, this came at a bit of a surprise. Fortunately the bill has been roughly $20-40 over the past few years so it appears to be an exceedingly minor leak. I don't think anyone tests the gas pressure, usually there isn't an unused valve to test it on. As long as the stove turns on all burners it will get a pass. I'm pretty sure ours wasn't tested as our service was never interrupted. I don't think the previous owners called to disconnect anything. Certainly not the alarm system. 
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Mar 6, 2018 23:47
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I've been looking at houses for a few months now, and recently had an "oh gently caress" realization that I'm drawn to older homes. I thought that I was going to be logical and frugal and grab myself the most cost-effective econobox that's off a bus line, has a functional kitchen, and isn't outright hideous. Then I'd quickly build equity in it, pay it off, eventually sell it, and use the money to get a custom forever home done. But nope, turns out I'm too wishy-washy to pull the trigger on a house that works on paper but doesn't have any charm (and the interior decorating I like best works best with high ceilings). Plus, most of the neighborhoods with good bus service have a ton of houses still standing that were built in 1890 - 1920. Just so that I'm 100% aware of what I'm setting myself up for, are my ramblings below correct and is there anything I'm missing? Old House Concern Checklist: Electrical wiring - If it's knob-and-tube it absolutely has to be upgraded and may very well interfere with financing. Aluminum wiring isn't great either, but isn't a fire hazard. Lead paint - As long as it's been painted over and isn't flaking/cracking/peeling, it can be left alone indefinitely. Extra attention should be paid around window sills and door frames where there's more wear and tear. If I want a vegetable garden I should plan on raised beds or testing the soil quality. Asbestos - Similar to lead paint, as long as it isn't flaking/cracking/disintegrating I can leave it alone indefinitely. Will also show up in more places than I expect, as it can be insulation/tiling/wrapped around old wiring/etc. Plaster walls - Assume that if I have to do absolutely anything within the wall that I'm going to have to take the whole wall down and replace it with drywall. Understand that I can't hang stuff from it or drill holes in it easily and if I'm not careful I'm going to ruin the wall. Windows - If there are any original windows because of weird shapes or them being stained glass or something, understand that they are going to have lovely heat and sound insulation and would be stupidly expensive to replace or repair. I'll probably want to have some kind of storm windows fitted over them. Insulation - Unless given proof otherwise, I should assume the place is drafty with poo poo insulation and my electric bills are going to be high. Adding insulation should pay off quickly, but care should be taken because old houses breathe/retain moisture weirdly compared to modern houses and adding insulation the wrong way can quickly cause moisture problems within the walls. Plumbing - Absolutely make sure I get a specialist inspector for this. My realtor has indicated that I'll also want to check a county website to confirm that the waterline is no longer a lead pipe. Fireplaces - I absolutely should not light any fires in one of these without having somebody come out to sweep/check it first. If it's boarded up, assume that I'd have to practically rebuild the whole chimney to get it functional again. A lot of the local old homes have coal burning fireplaces, and these are too shallow to convert to wood burning and have their own concerns if I wanted to use them again. Home insurance - I've read that this tends to be higher for older homes, but I don't know if this is because you're likely to have a specific issue (like old wiring) that the insurance company asks about, or just because of the year the house was built regardless of later updates. Maintenance / emergency fund - Expect the house to be more expensive to maintain than average. Strongly encouraged not to put more than 20% down even if I have the funds available, as something expensive the inspection missed absolutely will go wrong within months of moving in. Foundation - Honestly I don't know a lot about these in general, much less for older homes? I know I can expect there to be more settling for an older home, but no clue beyond that.
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Mar 7, 2018 03:32
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You've hit the big ones. Asbestos you might be better off than most, as you are actually pre-build-homes-out-of-it time period, but beware anything added. Foundation is potentially rubble rock. Have a specialist out. Expect to throw $25k at the house just to get in the door, and another in a year just to be safe. Lots of repairs are way easier before you move in so consider that strongly.
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Mar 7, 2018 04:35
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Are you me? During our house search process, my fiance and I were both drawn to older prewar houses, me to much older houses than him. I was absolutely focusing on houses built between 1890 and 1920. He was focusing more on 30s and 40s houses. We also live in an area where the vast majority of the housing stock is prewar. If you want a newer house, you pretty much either have to go out to some exurban wasteland or go with some heinous in-fill hipster modern condo or something. We ended up with a 1910 late Victorian, mostly unadulterated - a few functional upgrades here and there, but original details and layout still in place (no "open concept" desecration, thank gently caress), along with some original knob and tube wiring, all original plaster, original radiators, and original (non-functioning) gas light circuitry. The inspection on the house yielded a gamut of typical but not deal breaking old house problems to be aware of, as well as the knob and tube that the seller did not disclose (we thought we'd hit the jackpot with a reasonably priced Victorian with already redone wiring, but nope). Inspector said that in our case, the knob and tube was in good condition and had not been dangerously messed with, and that our biggest issue with it would be getting insurance. Got a nice seller credit in exchange for the lack of disclosure, too, that will go towards updating the wiring. However, we had no issue getting insurance - we went with a regional insurer that I guess is used to being in an area with tons of old housing stock and insuring all of it. I mean, everything has knob and tube here, including my apartment (apartment also has (encased) lead paint and asbestos pipe insulation in the basement). We got the better coverage because replacement cost for all these Victorian details is higher so want to be covered. On plaster - don't knock plaster. Actually yeah, you can knock it because it won't get dented like drywall. Current apartment (1915 Craftsman quadplex) and new house have plaster, and it's so nice. Walls are thick and QUIET. I had previously lived in a postwar house with drywall and you could hear EVERYTHING. Plaster can be patched, but it's more expensive than patching drywall because plaster guys are skilled, sought after, and rare. If you want to hang pictures or a spice rack or something, you can certainly do it with the right drill bit. I would recommend preserving plaster as much as much as you can because it's great. On windows - I'm a stickler for cool original windows and I would take care of them and just get storm panes. Storm panes are good because they trap more air between themselves and the window glass than a double pane window. Also, blinds and curtains in the window are pretty effective. Actually, in our new house, there is a busted window that won't fully close. With the blinds and curtains over it, there's pretty much no draft or heat loss. But as soon as you pull up the blind and curtain, icy air. We're gonna get that fixed soon. In general, I'm going to be aiming to repair and keep all the remaining original windows and eventually look to replace all the hideous replacement windows with good looking replicas of the originals. Personally, I'd rather have pretty original windows and take a few extra steps to care for them and use other means of heat loss prevention than have ugly anachronistic super energy efficient windows. Oh, also, radiators - radiant heat owns. I've lived with both forced air and radiant heat here and I'd take the radiators any day. I was actually put off from older houses where owners had replaced radiators with forced air. Anyways, I love old houses and I'm so happy we finally bought a glorious old house. I'm very well aware that we'll be putting more work into it, but I grew up in an old house with load-bearing ivy so I have an exceptionally high tolerance for old house bullshit.
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Mar 7, 2018 06:05
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PurpleLizardWizard posted:Just so that I'm 100% aware of what I'm setting myself up for, are my ramblings below correct and is there anything I'm missing? Everything you listed is pretty much accurate. Some other stuff to watch for: The Roof - Assuming you're looking at Victorians, roofs are going to be way more complex than a boring house. Steep roofs are expensive to repair and require more material to cover than flatter roofs. Every peak and valley in a roof is an opportunity for leaks to form. Flat sections of roofs will always leak, eventually. Victorians often feature all three of these! Beyond the age of the shingles you need to know about the material and age of the flashing, and if flat sections are present, the age and condition of the membrane covering it. The Kitchen - If it hasn't already been renovated, you're going to want to do it for electrical purposes if nothing else. The room will likely be too small to fit a modern kitchen layout, and the walls will not be square, plumb, or level. You're likely to need to build out your walls because modern plumbing codes call for larger vents that won't fit in a 2"x4" cavity. All of this can be worked around but you're going to lose inches you thought you had. HVAC - If the house was retrofitted with forced air, the installers might have cut through important structure to do so. Beware. If the house has radiators boiler age and condition will be a concern. Depending on the area, there might be a heating oil tank on site -- this is an environmental hazard and will cost big time to remediate. If you want to add air conditioning and there aren't ducts already, it might be easier to put in a ductless mini split system. The Lot - Look at the drainage on the lot. Make sure the landscaping slopes away from the house, and there isn't wood touching the ground anywhere. Are there gutters? Where do they drain? Is there a sump pump? Where does it drain? Where is parking? If you don't have off-street parking, can you get a space after 8 PM? If there's a detached garage, are you allowed to renovate or expand it? Is there a sidewalk and are you responsible for its maintenance? Are there trees and are they healthy? Do any of them overhang the roof or your neighbor's property? General stuff - You are probably better off structurally the less that's been done to the house over time, unless there was a water leak or termite infestation or whatever. Even if you can see new copper wiring and all the outlets look like they've been replaced, you might have knob and tube in the walls if it was done unscrupulously (this happened to me). What's the electrical service like? Can you get all the amperage you need? Have there been additions made? If so, are they tied in to the structure of the house well? I'm sure everything will be great!
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Mar 7, 2018 08:36
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H110Hawk posted:Lots of repairs are way easier before you move in so consider that strongly. What kind of repairs are these? Obviously painting is easier before you have a bunch of furniture around to be careful with, and doing anything with the floor is easier if there's nothing on it yet, but is anything else more than it's-inconvenient-to-live-through-it? In case it changes the answer, I've got two dumb cats that would absolutely jump into a hole in the wall, and one of them has already proven he's allergic to mortar dust and treats it like super-catnip. Queen Victorian posted:Are you me? During our house search process, my fiance and I were both drawn to older prewar houses, me to much older houses than him. I was absolutely focusing on houses built between 1890 and 1920. He was focusing more on 30s and 40s houses. We also live in an area where the vast majority of the housing stock is prewar. If you want a newer house, you pretty much either have to go out to some exurban wasteland or go with some heinous in-fill hipster modern condo or something. Haha, not quite. I can like modern homes, but I have to feel like they were built with purpose and character. And modern houses that fit that and hit my other requirements are largely outside of my budget. That, or they have septic systems and private drives with informal HOAs that I don't trust to actually maintain the road. There's also a smidge of YOLO going on, because many years from now when I design my Dream Home(tm), it's going to be a ranch just because I want to make sure I can age in place. Pretty sure you can't do a Victorian ranch, and I'd regret never having a pretentious house full of built-ins, velvet curtains, chunky crown molding, and wainscoting (and upsetting the historical purists by painting the whole thing blue and purple). Queen Victorian posted:On windows - I'm a stickler for cool original windows and I would take care of them and just get storm panes. Storm panes are good because they trap more air between themselves and the window glass than a double pane window. Also, blinds and curtains in the window are pretty effective. Actually, in our new house, there is a busted window that won't fully close. With the blinds and curtains over it, there's pretty much no draft or heat loss. But as soon as you pull up the blind and curtain, icy air. We're gonna get that fixed soon. In general, I'm going to be aiming to repair and keep all the remaining original windows and eventually look to replace all the hideous replacement windows with good looking replicas of the originals. Personally, I'd rather have pretty original windows and take a few extra steps to care for them and use other means of heat loss prevention than have ugly anachronistic super energy efficient windows. As indicated above, I'm a heathen that doesn't care about historical integrity a whole bunch. Like, yeah, I would put in the effort to find and pay a premium for replacement/replica windows that fit the house aesthetics, and I'd make sure anything I removed went to the local architectural salvage shop. But if I don't like, say, the baseboards and it turns out there's a different style from roughly the same time period I prefer? Gonna replace it. Tricky Ed posted:The Roof - Assuming you're looking at Victorians, roofs are going to be way more complex than a boring house. Steep roofs are expensive to repair and require more material to cover than flatter roofs. Every peak and valley in a roof is an opportunity for leaks to form. Flat sections of roofs will always leak, eventually. Victorians often feature all three of these! Beyond the age of the shingles you need to know about the material and age of the flashing, and if flat sections are present, the age and condition of the membrane covering it. There's a good mixture of Victorians and their cousin/offshoot(?) Italianates. The latter actually concern me a bit because I'm just not used to the idea of a flat, lightly sloped roof and don't understand yet how they work. Tricky Ed posted:The Kitchen - If it hasn't already been renovated, you're going to want to do it for electrical purposes if nothing else. The room will likely be too small to fit a modern kitchen layout, and the walls will not be square, plumb, or level. You're likely to need to build out your walls because modern plumbing codes call for larger vents that won't fit in a 2"x4" cavity. All of this can be worked around but you're going to lose inches you thought you had. Yeah, I'm keeping an eye on these. Having a larger kitchen is an absolute requirement for me, so I'm making sure there aren't doors/stairs/low windows that would interfere with expanding the current kitchen if it isn't up to snuff for me. I'm also under the impression that internal walls of row houses largely aren't load bearing? Tricky Ed posted:HVAC - If the house was retrofitted with forced air, the installers might have cut through important structure to do so. Beware. If the house has radiators boiler age and condition will be a concern. Depending on the area, there might be a heating oil tank on site -- this is an environmental hazard and will cost big time to remediate. If you want to add air conditioning and there aren't ducts already, it might be easier to put in a ductless mini split system. I'm actually viewing dated HVAC as a perverse plus as long as it doesn't look like it'd fail within 5 years. My preference would be to install radiant floors and ductless mini splits. Are there reasons to avoid ductless beyond it usually being cheaper in the short term to bundle the heating and cooling systems together? Tricky Ed posted:The Lot - Look at the drainage on the lot. Make sure the landscaping slopes away from the house, and there isn't wood touching the ground anywhere. Are there gutters? Where do they drain? Is there a sump pump? Where does it drain? Where is parking? If you don't have off-street parking, can you get a space after 8 PM? If there's a detached garage, are you allowed to renovate or expand it? Is there a sidewalk and are you responsible for its maintenance? Are there trees and are they healthy? Do any of them overhang the roof or your neighbor's property? This is something that worries me with row houses. When there's only a driveway between you and your neighbor, and a good chunk of the houses paved their entire back "yard" as a parking pad, just where can you even direct your drains?
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Mar 8, 2018 01:08
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