Old homes? - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

rickg · #1 10-18-2003, 11:30 AM

The wife and I are planning on moving sometime next year. We're on the tail end of the whole child-raising thing(Yippee!!

) We've lived in this cracker-box manufactured home for 14 years now, and feel we've more than paid our dues. Time to buy a real house.
So, my question. We're seriously looking to buy an old home. Something built before 1950, preferrably in the 1920-1940 range. We're mostly looking at brick homes, which I'm hoping will eliminate at least some of the problems and maintenance(wishful thinking?). I was wondering if any of ya'll have now, or have in the past, owned a home like that, and what kind of "fun" you had with it. Did it turn into just an endless money pit? Was it worth it, ect, ect.

TX76513 · #2 10-18-2003, 11:37 AM

Ever thought of building exactly what you want? Be the G.C. and put that back into the equity of your home. It's easy, can be a blast, and when you move in you have an automatic 20 -30% equity with hardly any out-of-pocket $$

rickg · #3 10-18-2003, 11:45 AM

Actually we have though about that. But I'm not sure if I want that much "fun"

But yes, it is an option.

TX76513 · #4 10-18-2003, 11:52 AM

Just noticed the ball in the dog's mouth again -there goes my gag reflex. It's really not a PIA, and lending is a snap as banks love the fact of the positive equity, and as added value you get to squeeze all the sub c's like oranges

Kuan · #5 10-18-2003, 11:58 AM

I love older homes. If I had a choice I'd move into a Craftsman home from the 20's. If you're handy you can get a lot of parts from architectural junkyards. If you can get a house on the historic registry I think you qualify for some kind of assistance.

I have many friends who have older homes. They all, and I mean ALL, spent between 20-50k on updates. HVAC, floors, and paint are the first things they do.

rickg · #6 10-18-2003, 12:01 PM

Yeah, she found the damn ball again

I have friends and relatives in various areas of home construction, plumbers, ect. So we are going to pick their brains too. In fact, I have an aunt and uncle sitting on an acre of land they haven't figured out what to do with yet, and thought of seeing if they'd sell. It's right in the area we want to move to, too

rickg · #7 10-18-2003, 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kuan
I have many friends who have older homes. They all, and I mean ALL, spent between 20-50k on updates. HVAC, floors, and paint are the first things they do.

That's the kind of info I'm looking for here. We watch HGTV alot, and have seen some of the nightmares you can run into. We were kind of hoping to find one that someone already had done most of the dirty work, and we can just do the cosmetic-type stuff. Again, maybe just a dream.

"I love older homes. If I had a choice I'd move into a Craftsman home from the 20's. If you're handy you can get a lot of parts from architectural junkyards. If you can get a house on the historic registry I think you qualify for some kind of assistance."

But this is the positive side of the issue. We love antiques, and when we bought new living room furniture a couple years ago, we bought stuff that would fit into a home like this. (Looks kinda out of place where we are now tho'

)
The historic registry thing is something to consider that I hadn't thought of. Good idea

#8 10-18-2003, 03:14 PM

I must've gotten lucky. I bought a house that was built in the 40's and had very few things to do to it.

Brick fascades are great in the game of not having to paint the place, and they help add a bit to keeping the cold outside. They can actually hide foundation problems in their early stages. As with anything that old, a home inspection can save much grief. Old homes are awesome. They carry an atmosphere that cannot be matched by any modern home. Like with anything, the care of the previous owner will dictate directly into the amount of money you're going to spend to get it up to your specs.

TN-W124 Diesel · #9 10-18-2003, 05:08 PM

I had a 100 year old home once, very nice, everybody loved it, but when it came time to sell , it was very hard, (1 year) not everbody wants a old home...but I do love them..GET IT INSPECTED before you buy...good luck..!!

sfloriII · #10 10-18-2003, 05:13 PM

I do a lot of work at the Dept. of Urban and Housing Authority. (On a side, Sec. Martinez and I are members of the same parish and I see him at Church a lot.)

Look into purchasing a HUD home. You can get it cheaper than other homes, but expect to put a little money into it.

kerry · #11 10-18-2003, 05:17 PM

Our house was built in 1890. Bought it in 1989. It had been abandoned and empty for two years when we bought it. Put all new roofs (about 32 squares), new heating system, much new plumbing. New drywall ceilings in about a quarter of the house since the roof had been leaking so badly the ceilings were on the floor. Took up carpet and refinished hardwood floor underneath or put in new hardwood floors.

It had hot water radiator heat. When it was left empty, temperature went to 30 below zero. Boiler busted and almost every radiator in the house cracked. Pipes were steel and joints were cast iron. Most joints were broken. We put in new joints. We learned how to take apart radiators section by section and reassembled new radiators from the unbroken sections. Someone had stolen most of the light fixtures and almost all the switches since they were the antique push botton type. Someone had stolen the mantel from the living room and the stained glass out of the front window. Solid oak trim everywhere. No one had stolen that, but even better, no one had ever painted it downstairs.

We did all the work ourselves. Bought used boiler and used radiators to replace the ones we couldn't fix. Took out one of the 1950's bathroom and replaced with claw foot tub and period fixtures from the used lumber yard. Total cost out of pocket less than 12k in materials. A thousand or so in tools and lots of sweat. Very fulfilling work.

I watch This Old House. Those people are in a different league altogether than the average person in my opinion. We paid for materials as we could afford it and never had a mortgage on the place at all since no one would loan on it to start with because it was in such bad shape. Someone offered a construction loan but the closing costs in six months (which was the total amount of time they would allow to renovate it) were ten per cent of the loan. Needless to say, I turned it down. The house is now worth about 15 times what we paid for it.

sfloriII · #12 10-18-2003, 05:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by rickg
The wife and I are planning on moving sometime next year. We're on the tail end of the whole child-raising thing(Yippee!! ) We've lived in this cracker-box manufactured home for 14 years now, and feel we've more than paid our dues. Time to buy a real house.
So, my question. We're seriously looking to buy an old home. Something built before 1950, preferrably in the 1920-1940 range. We're mostly looking at brick homes, which I'm hoping will eliminate at least some of the problems and maintenance(wishful thinking?). I was wondering if any of ya'll have now, or have in the past, owned a home like that, and what kind of "fun" you had with it. Did it turn into just an endless money pit? Was it worth it, ect, ect.

By the way, Rick, if you and your wife transplant that same house to northern Virginia outside DC, you'll get at least $350,000 for it!!

That's the hell I'm dealing with now in searching for my own place!!

rickg · #13 10-18-2003, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by sfloriII
By the way, Rick, if you and your wife transplant that same house to northern Virginia outside DC, you'll get at least $350,000 for it!! That's the hell I'm dealing with now in searching for my own place!!

Eeewww!

That's one reason we're moving....out of state. The Seattle area's cost of living has just gotten too high for us, and we want a better house. We'd have to move about another 30 to 60 miles north and east to get something we can afford. It's not as bad as your area, but it's getting there. A friend of mine just sold his 5 lousy acres down a bit south of us, for $1.1 million

Sheesh! That's just land. No livable house on it. That with the unstable economy here, I'm moving on. We're heading to Utah where I have lots of family, and homes and the cost of living is alot better. We have relatives that offered to let us stay with them until we can move into a house. Can't beat that! I can get a decent home in the $90k to 125K range, which is about what our cracker-box here is worth. I have a couple job leads already, and it looks like I'll even be able to make a little more $$ to boot

I like Kerry's report. that's about what we were thinking, $10k to $20K to bring an old house like this up to date. But it sounds like you really have a fixer-upper!

Maybe it won't be so bad after all.
I have seen a few HUD homes for sale down there. Cheap!! That's a good idea too. Long as the main structure is solid, I can do the rest.

Hatterasguy · #14 10-18-2003, 05:55 PM

sfloriII that sounds like Milford, CT to. You can't touch anything for under 200k, that doesn't need a lot of work. 300k or up is about average. Oh and apartments are 1k a month and up! Ahhh the "gold" coast.

Kuan · #15 10-18-2003, 08:46 PM

My wife and I thought about buying an older house too. You know what you need to do Rick is go to the bookstore, purchase your beverage of choice, and look through a book on home repair. See what you can do, see what you really don't want to do. In our case we figured that there was too much way beyond our ability so we junked the idea.

One good thing about a house which was built in the 20's is... no asbestos

But there are so many other things too, like lead solder, lead paint, wet basement, insufficient amps (which I assume you can fix yourself) old city pipes, old septic on the property, old well, leaky roofs, out of plumb chimneys, rotten subfloors, out of code and illegal wiring, man... the list just goes on.

We found out that you can get all that in our area for around 250k. Screw that.

Don't let me discourage you though, I know you engineers are resourceful people. You might be able to do a lot of it yourself.