1800 sq ft 1960s fixer upper needs inspecting and updating
cneiland
6 years ago
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House Shopping, Saw an Old House Today and Need Help Deciding
Comments (32)I refer to our two hundred year old home as a white elephant. I am in the greenhouse business and my husband is a rabid gardener, so the grounds are planted with rare trees and flower gardens and go on for acres. Over the years we have added a large gazebo and a spring fed pond. yadayadayada. Only a person who knows old homes first hand, and has the time or money to hire a professional full-time gardener, should ever buy it. There'll be lots of people to come look when it goes up for sale, but it would not be for the weak of heart. Heating bills. Put that at the top of your list. Even if you let the house fall down around you, they'll just keep coming. We've installed new double-paned energy efficient windows. Caulked. Weather stripped. Built a solarium across 2/3 of the northern exposure of the home for solar gain, replaced the roof, put in a new boiler, converted from electric to gas heat (yes we had to pay to have lines ran), and placed gas grates in strategic spots to take off chill or use when it wasn't too cold. Use reversing ceiling fans to distribute the heat. We've cut our heating bill IN HALF as far as energy consumption. But, rates rise and will keep rising. We still have six hundred dollar a month heating bills in winter. And this is an old farmhouse. It does not have fourteen foot ceilings. It also is nowhere near 6,000k square feet. And, until we put a small fortune in the energy efficiency items, a draft from a window on one side of the room could blow out a candle on the other. It's comfy now, and even cool in summer so we don't need air conditioning, but for the first fifteen years of my marriage you needed a wet suit to take a bath. Think also about the bones of the house. Redecorating is great, but get somebody in there who knows construction really well to look at the skeleton of the house before you even consider buying it. The last two winters, we replaced the beams and joists under our kitchen and dining room. They were logs with the bark still on them, or logs cut on site and hand hewn to nearly square. They were ENORMOUS,and likely dragged into place by teams of horses. We needed to chain saw them to even think about getting them out. We had to gut these rooms clean down to the dirt underneath and after we got new joists up then replaced floors. Moolah. BTW, we never thought about replacing joists and floor beams in this house. After all, they'd withstood two centuries before us. Then termites happened. LOL. The roofer left about a hundred bats homeless when we replaced the slate for modern shingles. We've put in a new entrance box and had to rewire the whole house and it has solid brick interior walls. The logistics of running electricals, and the plumbing for the boiler system were staggering. If you see fuse boxes that should send up a red flag to check out the electricals for modern wiring. Moolah. We had to restucco over the seventy five year old stucco over the bricks. (major, major moolah) We've had to repair or renovate chimneys and it's hard to find brickmasons here who are familiar with the old craftsmanship. That's another thing about very old houses. Nearly everything in seriously old house is done by methods not common to craftsmen anymore and that includes materials. If you have to replace parts of woodwork it's going to be something like oak or mahogany and large. Not box store kickplates. My walls are so old, it's not even plaster on most of them, it's a sandy almost concrete covering. If we put together all the money we have spent in the last two and a half decades breathing life back into our wonderful old home, we could be living in a really fancy new one. We don't want to. We love our old home and pretty much know it inside and out by now. But, it's like a marriage and yes.............we are the volunteer caretakers to an historic old building we couldn't see being left to ruin. But, it's going to take a very special person to want the job after us. Now, ask me about the plastering schedule where the doors and windows are. LOL. Old houses just keep settling. Not a door in this house even resembles a rectangle. They all have been trimmed or had wood added to them to fit the openings. Every window was custom made and no two are the same size. The house is nearly regained its integrity now, and I can see the end in sight of the major issues. But, if we had been forced to sell this at any point along our long path of renovation, and somebody else had to pick up where we'd left off, if they knew up from down, you can take it to the bank our money and sweat wouldn't have left much room for profit. There'd have been no quick sells. The end results perfect for us. It's rustic yet and even has a pitcher pump in the kitchen to pull up the spring water for the house. But you always live with a foot in the past where people lived simpler and made do in some respects. Some people can do that. Some people can't. It fits our lifestyle well.........simple and hard working. But, it was purchased because my husband wanted an old large home in a rural setting. If he'd just wanted "room" it wouldn't have even been in the game. Good luck whatever you decide....See Morefirst time buyer in over my head
Comments (60)Ty to the almost everyone on here for your support, I really appreciate it so much and have learned so much from this whole experience. Last update, we have rescinded the contract, the seller has decided not to fix the wiring, and after meeting with her LA and my REA she will not budge. She has an emotional attachment with the home we were now told, we dont think she really wants to sell it. Her own LA told her she was being silly, she wouldnt even let the contractors in to get a bid on the electric..so we have moved on and to be honest I am extremely happy at this point. It has gotten to be too much for me. To try to answer some questions, the gut rehab across the street is still in the running with us, only problem is we think the rear yard is too small for the kids the way it is fenced and the placement of the garage.That was the only reason we didnt offer on it, the garage is smack in the middle of the back yard!! As far as my DH, Yes I did defer to him when it came time to write the offer, he is the sole breadwinner here and I knew how much he wanted the house,we both wanted the same result, I just let him take the lead on this at the time. We are new to the whole homebuying thing,so it was a bit stressful at the time. Diane- sigh, Im sorry you feel the way you do about me, my thread is now done so I guess you can go find someone else to "pick on". I never asked for sympathy nor did I feel I was a victim, I was looking for advice which is what this forum is here for. Please think about how you post to people, I am not new here, just new to posting. If I were a first time poster you would have already run me off. Thank you all, we will be looking at new listings in the next few weeks and hopefully will have good news to share soon!! Don't give up first timers, there is home out there for us somewhere!!...See MoreDo I need my own realtor?
Comments (36)caulk_king wrote: "Sheesh. The more I read on this topic, I think realtors have all these little rules that you & I are not supposed to question. What does the attorney do? Do I have them draw up an offer? Or do I just make my offer to the selling agent & they do a contract that I then have reviewed by our attorney? Thats what we did. We made our offer and had our real estate attorney draw up our own contract. He suggested we use this instead of the standard one because it would better protect our interests. If you don't already have a RE attorney sometimes you can find a good one at a bank, they can probably help with the appraisal as well. I would call a mortgage lender in that town (or closest large town) and ask for a couple of names the lender has worked with in a closing. (Ask for the branch manager at the mortgage company - and tell them you are paying cash so you don't have to listen to a sales pitch. Mortgage lenders work with attorneys all the time. They know which ones do their homework and which ones are a pain to deal with, etc. Nobody wants to deal with the latter, so their recommendations might be helpful. The following is something I picked up in a real estate forum. I don't have the link but it may be helpful: "You might want to do a couple of things to help you feel better. Go to the city/township clerk's office (or better, check online - do a google on the town's name and "government" and see if they have Assessments listed anywhere on the official town website.) With nothing but an address, I can go online and see the info in the official records about the lot, the owners, the taxes, the buildings on the lot including sq footage (at least as much as was done with permits - LOL!) and the info on previous sales. I can often get a drawing of the perimeter of the house with measurements. There is often a search for comparables, or a listing of recent sales. At worst, you will have to do a search on the addresses of the recent sales to see the sizes of these buildings and the selling prices. From that you can do a cost-per-square-foot calculation and see if you really did overpay compared to recent comparables. I will guess that you will find that your house cost was not out of line with other recent sales." One last thing. Read the thread "Just don't want to use a buyer's agent"? Some of the information there might be useful for determining is you need a realtor or not. ;)...See MoreBuyer asked for 63 fixes on Inspection
Comments (66)I can bet that out of that $40,000, the government gets a large chunk of it now. Yep, between permits and engineering reviews and inspection fees, regulatory departments have become governmental profit centers. It started as "don't worry about the cost of this new proposed department, we won't raise your taxes, we'll fund it with user fees." So Joe Taxpayer feels ok, because hey, the department is going to regulate something which will keep me safe. And it won't cost me anything. So Joe Plumber pays the user fees. So he has to raise his rates, so Joe Taxpayer now pays more for plumbing. But hey, at least his taxes didn't go up. :-/...See Moresuezbell
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoUser
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agodyliane
6 years agoPatricia Colwell Consulting
6 years agoDenita
6 years agozmith
6 years ago
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