Building vs buying an older home
St561 W
7 years ago
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St561 W
7 years agoRelated Discussions
Building vs buying home costs?
Comments (13)Woodside is one of the most expensive and exclusive towns in the United States. An acre of land there is at least $2M (more likely $3M) and that is before removal of an existing older home, grading, etc. You will not find land to support a house of this size there for $1M. You don't say where you are but it's sort of implied you're in the bay area. If so, then you'll have trouble finding land anywhere convenient that could support a property of this size for that budget. You might find some larger plots further up 84 towards Skyline, down south on 17 in the Los Gatos Mountains beyond Saratoga. I suspect you will like these locations even less though unless you enjoy being remote or have a business reason to be so far south. For most people on this forum, the real estate market in the SF Bay area and on the Peninsula in particular is just completely bonkers so please suspend your disbelief for a moment if you've not participated in this market. If you just like this style of house and could live with a 1/4-1/3 acre lot you may be able to find land in Redwood City's Emerald Hills neighborhood (also zipcode 94062) for the low $1Ms. It is very hard to find even quarter acre lots in the bay area as residential land has been saturated since the early 1970s, so you will be buying an existing house to tear down & replace. Existing homes on the peninsula range from $1M for a 1500sqft house on a 6000sqft (San Carlos/Redwood City area) lot to $2-3M for a 2500sqft house on a 11000sqft lot (Los Altos/Palo Alto area). In the lower density neighborhoods (Woodside, Portola Valley, Atherton, Los Altos Hills) you are looking at at least $2M for a teardown on an undesirable acre lot. In Atherton it's going to be $3-4M for a teardown on an acre. This is the cost of living inside the Silicon Valley bubble. A note on resale: In the right parts of the Bay Area it should be pretty easy to re-sell a property in the $2-4M range, unless there's something significantly weird about it. When you spend more than that, or move off the beaten track a little bit, you're looking at multiple months to sell (vs. multiple weeks). It should be possible to build this number of square feet for much less elsewhere in the country, but note that there is an expectation of quality/architectural detail in the San Francisco Peninsula's affluent hillside communities that is not easily replicated for less $ elsewhere....See MoreBuying Old house Vs New house.
Comments (23)Honestly, I'd be much more comfortable buying an 11 year old house over a brand new one. I have heard and experienced too many horror stories regarding shoddy construction of new houses - unless you really bone up on good building practices and are there supervising every day, you really have no idea if your new house is built well or not. My sister-in-law just spent $400K on a new Pulte townhome (a big tract builder around here). In one year, she has had about 5 separate plumbing leaks, a basement leak, several leaks at the windows, her kitchen floor has heaved and had to be torn up and replaced twice, and her heating bills are running over $500/mo because the houses weren't insulated correctly and the HVAC was sized wrong. And everyone in her development is having similar problems. They just don't build new homes well anymore. Even "slightly old" houses can have really bad problems. We bought a 3 year old house that was custom-designed and built with very high end materials (cedar roof, 4-side stucco siding). We ended up having to spend upwards of $140K fixing it because it leaked like a sieve. We are now in litigation with the builder trying to recover our repair costs, but have spent over $10K in lawyer fees with no end in sight. I will never ever buy a brand new house again - in fact, I've sworn that any house I buy will be at least 80 years old, LOL! But by the time a house is 10 or 11 years old, any serious problems will probably have shown up - our house had been leaking from day 1 but it took until the house was 6 years old before we discovered it, since all the leaks and damage were confined to the insides of the walls for the first several years. I'll link to our saga for anyone who's interested. Here is a link that might be useful: Our house......See MoreBuying an old house vs a newly built house
Comments (16)We are on our 5th house, three were brand new, one was old, and our current house was three years old. There are trade offs in every decision. Brand new houses have no maintenance, but they do involve expenses to put in a water softener, window coverings, landscaping. A brand new house can have some mistakes. Our second house didn't have duct work to one of the bedrooms. They forgot! The nice thing was, with a brand new build, it came with a warranty and all that little stuff was fixed for the first year. While I disagree that all new builds are shoddily built, that one was, but it was priced as such, and what we could afford at the time. With the old house, we had had problems with plumbing and electric, it had an old furnace that had oil heat when every other house had natural gas, and wasn't in the best neighborhood. It didn't have a lot of amenities, not even a dishwasher. It also came with costs to update decor as well as infrastructure, and even with the money we put into it, it was a beast to sell. Older homes generally don't have the features we like. Both Mr. Hammer and I enjoy having a master bath. I don't want to go down the hall to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Master suites are more common in new builds than old. I also like first floor laundry and a mud room, and Mr. Hammer insists on not only an attached garage, but a three car attached garage, other things that are unlikely in old builds around here. I want to add that we are in a time in our lives when we are very busy with family life with kids growing up. Someone said 10 years go by quickly and you need maintenance on a new build, but if you are putting braces on your kid and paying doctor bills for those 10 years, that grace period is a blessing! I am the happiest with our current house, which was 3 years old when we bought it (family was relocating). They already did all the initial costs of putting in landscaping, window coverings, the water softener and upgraded the appliances. They even put in a raised garden bed and storm doors on both the front door and the door leading to the garage. We also have the newest thing around here, a covered patio. It is wonderful! Although frankly, I think we have more things we love in our home because we paid for it. We are in a much different financial place than we were when we bought that shoddy new build with a blacktop driveway and no heat to the baby's room. What amenities I have now, I paid for them!...See MoreTankless water heat for an older home with older electric
Comments (12)Thanks Jake and Kevin for your input. Yes, my main motivating factor is economic, but there is also a space issue. The current 50 gallon tank is in a closet under the stairs and blocks the only entrance to the crawl space (I live in a split-level ranch circa 1965). It would be nice to be able to continue to get to the crawl space as I fear a new tank which may be larger in diameter, will completely block the entry, whereas the tankless would open up much more space for being able to fix the "dampness" issue and improving the under house insulation (which is considerably lacking at the moment). I've looked at the hybrid tanks, but at over $1000 each I can't afford them AND I think they are too tall to fit under the stairs. As for an electrician, I have a friend who is a licensed electrician in VA and willing to help me out with installing and upgrading, at the moment I don't think I have 200A service inside the house, but I know I can upgrade to that fairly easily with a new box (which I need anyway). Another part of the issue is that I seem to have a large amount of lime scale build-up in the tank and likely in the lines. The flow rate of the hot water in my second bath is barely a trickle and it is only slightly better in my primary shower. What's the best way to control lime scale build-up? Because regardless of which direction I go with the water heater, it's obvious that lime scale is a problem and will continue to be an issue for either kind of tank and the water lines that flow off it. (why does lime scale not build up in the cold water lines?) Anyway, thanks again for your input, it is definitely something to consider....See Moremrspete
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