What elements would you keep and work with?

In the bathroom, 100%. In the hallway, the wallcovering is a heavy fabric. If it is not terribly faded I would probably keep this too. If not I would replace it with similar, since it's lasted almost 60 years. The hallway floor is VCT. If it is completely intact I would keep it. There were so many people in the house because of the price I could not take a lot of pictures or inspect things too closely. There is probably hardwood under the MBR carpet.

It depends on the infrastructure, are the electrical, plumbing and HVAC adequate? I don't know. If they are, it was highly livable as it is. It does not have an old smell, it was very clean, not just cleaned up. It was just old fashioned, but much of that was decor. There is a fireplace that is fake. I would probably remove that.

Interesting to see a bidet in that era house.

I love the bathroom! I've never seen the small tile used on walls. And the hallway is charming-love the floor. Was the rest of the place as interesting?

I thought it was. There were a lot of people so I could not take too many pictures. I liked the den.

The kitchen would be better without some of the later updates (border, vinyl)

Love the blue fixtures! Where does one find colored toilet seats these days? Could that one be the original?

I get the bathroom, not feeling the rest of it. Is that a curved wall BTW?

The flat panel/glossy doors and trim, iron railing, apparent warping in the vinyl seam in the flooring, ceiling panels--all seem a cheap 70s build or remodel. I wouldn't consider those features worthy of salvaging. I do like the blue fixtures in the bathroom and could work around those.

If those are oil paintings in the hallway, I'd ask for them in my offer, for sure. They are beautiful.

One of the first things I learned in architecture classes was that door swings should not overlap.

To me, the bathroom is very depressing, but then I do not like brown

The brown walls are kind of weird and I wonder if they're original? They sure seem to clash with the blue. Are they actual tile or something else?

The tile floor looks cool tho. What was it like IRL?

I would need GALLONS of white paint to make that place almost livable. I am not a cave dwelling human.

When I look at houses like this, time capsules which are being marketed as gut renovations, I think of an analyze a lot of different things.

-There is usually a balance of things to like and to not like. I did not like the overall interior decoration of this house, it is 1960s regency, not my favorite in a city which has so many better influences for mid century eclectic design.

-The quality of the build is very high: It feels solid when you are walking around. Walking into the bath pictured is like walking into a bank vault because it's probably all full mortar bed construction.

-As for individual elements people have brought up or asked about:

---The bathroom and powder room are 1/2" rectified tile with flush grout, all original to this renovation (both tiles appear in both rooms)

---At least some of the flush doors are solid, not hollow core. The flush doors and clamshell trim were not installed in this house because they were cheap, they were installed because they were modern.

---Same with the VCT. Vinyl flooring was considered a material of the future. There is a house in the area with interiors by Dorothy Draper and she used vinyl tile in some areas.

---The stairs, which you can't really see, are a floating iron staircase. They may end up keeping that.

---The toilet seat is probably original, but if it's not, you can still get them to match vintage colors.

So I am not really paying so much attention to what I would have personally chosen, I am looking at build quality and condition.

The second thing I look at is price, and what would have to be spent to do something now that would match the original in quality:

The price is low for the neighborhood, and it also had few pictures. So it is marketed as a renovation. The realtor said to me: "It's priced so that someone could come in and spend $100,000 or $200,000 and it would still not be out of line for the neighborhood."

Well, "$100,000 or $200,000" isn't enough then. $100,000 would not get you a decent kitchen and 2-1/2 baths back into this house once the others were gutted, not replacing like for like. The kitchen is a little mean, but it was custom cabinets and stainless steel counters; the baths whether you like them are not are bomb proof and look new at 60 years old. You might be able to match them for $200K but then what about the rest of the house? No one is going to do a new kitchen and baths on old plumbing and electrical.

So what is going to happen most likely is the developer who has an offer will get it. The cheapest way for him to renovate is to treat it like a new house which means a to-the-party walls gut. It will end up getting a new construction (cheaply done) renovation, with some high-end finishes and appliances here and there.

What do I have against new construction? Experience. The $300K house my niece bought in a gentrifying area where the lot was near worthless and half the block was in shell condition, and the $2M new construction houses down my block have Exactly the same build quality. The Land was way more expensive. They have fancy appliances, and a garage. But the build quality is still terrible. They are 8 years old. One was condemned, One was completely stripped to the studs and everything replaced including exterior brick and sheathing and all windows. The condemned one is now being gutted and the other four (they are row houses) are being heavily renovated. Major lawsuits all around.

The house in the original post has the advantage that it's been there since the Civil War, but unless someone spends much more than the total package will end up being worth, the relative finish quality of what replaces this is going to be way down.