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50's, 60's, 70's homes are not exactly considered 'old', by many. I personally would consider most homes from that era a nightmare.
I would be interested in your sample size of houses viewed, however, because I have been looking for 2 years, and have viewed literally thousands of 'truly old' homes, to complement one I already have. Although it is well over 100 years old, it is more energy-efficient than most new construction (and you can't even tell that from looking at it, as all the energy-saving modifications are very well hidden.
Quote:"I saw plenty of 60=70s green linolium flooring that was peeling, Cheap cabinets/countertops, wood garage doors rotting aways, rotting away wood windows."
Why would you even waste your time looking at them?
I have a relatively new home, an truly old home, and some others in between. The only stigma about new houses I see (as stated by others), is that the quality is no longer there. For builders to make a profit, they have to build it for cheap, and for people who don't care (or know) about quality, they will buy it.
Wait... So houses less then 60 years old are new? lol.
Wait... So houses less then 60 years old are new(er)?
In the context of what has been getting discussed here? Yes.
"50's, 60's, 70's homes are not exactly considered 'old', by many."
And an actually old house, even the oldest of houses in the US,
isn't considered old at all when compared to many of what still exists in Europe.
This is why when buyers looking at an old(er) home see that the thirty year old X or the 60 year old Y
is due for replacement or even that some element of the foundation is showing it's 100 years in service...
these things are (mostly) just considered par for the course when owning an existing older home.
Some buyers, especially first timer, just aren't suited for the upkeep either financially or tempermentally
and will gravitate toward the newer home to avoid the open ended nature of that sort of work and probably also expecting to sell before the new house also begins to show those inevitable signs of age.
The question is what ELSE the buyers gets with a 50 or 80 or 180 year old home...
and whether that can be had at a price that make sense (however it is they value the money involved).
hth
Last edited by MrRational; 12-16-2011 at 04:24 PM..
Some buyers, especially first timer, just aren't suited for the upkeep either financially or tempermentally and will gravitate toward the newer home to avoid the open ended nature of that sort of work and probably also expecting to sell before the new house also begins to show those inevitable signs of age.
Also we older buyers who can and have done it all but have gotten to the point in life we no longer can/nor care care to do it all plus can afford to hire others to do so.
I would rather play golf/drink/nap then take on projects I can/have done in the past.....LOL
Class of 1983! Way before there was a Sachem East. We haven't lived in Suffolk County since 1988. I find it absolutely amusing that anyone is glorifying the homes built in the 60s/70s. They were pretty crummy. Poor design, low end materials.
In our current house all the bedrooms have an ensuite bathroom. It is not a necessary feature but it does make life easy in the morning. I let the kids use our shower if they want to but its nice having my own space for my own things.
I grew up in a house from this era--solid brick construction; living/dining room had 20 ft cathedral ceilings, floor to ceiling solid black walnut paneling, extensive full height windows and sliding glass doors; study with same fenestration and floor to ceiling solid oak paneling (ceilings are only 9 ft); full height rough field stone fireplace that opens to the both the dining room and study; beautiful custom tile work in the bathrooms and kitchen. There's more and this house was truly beautiful by practically anyone's standards (regardless of whether one likes that era of housing). My parents still live there and the place has held up pretty well--not "crummy" or "poor, low end materials" or construction at all. Perhaps, even nicer and better built than your spec house in Broward Co.
Point being: if you don't want others to make blanket statements about the recent era suburban mcmansions, please refrain from making similar disparaging statements about other era/styles of homes unless you've actually seen all the houses of which you speak.
Wait... So houses less then 60 years old are new? lol.
Sent from my autocorrect butchering device.
The distinction in this type of discussion is usually when they began eliminating craftsmanshiip and focussing on mass production assembly line type construction techniques. Along with this they began to run out of true quality materials (especially lumber) and to focus more and more on size and features in lieu of quality in every aspect of construction of homes. About this time, they also began to focus more and ore on convenience instead of aesthetics. They got rid of 5 paneld doors and fancy baseboard and crown modlings that need dusting and went with more and more flat surfaces wherever practical. This was both cheaper and easier to clean.
There is not fixed date. The mass production techniques started generally in the 1950s. a noticable drop in qulaity was apparent by the late 1960s, but there were still a large number of craftsman built homes. By the 1970s qulaify was pretty much gone as a focus for most homes and it continued to degrade from there.
Materials, especially lumber followed a similar pattern. In the 1950s there was still quite a lot of decent lumber. Quality had fallen off a bit as they began moving to younger trees and faster growing species. The quality drop continues today, but It cannot get much worse. Soon lumber simply will not be able to support a building. Already I have to send back hundreds of 2x4s because it was too soft, twisted or too wet to hold nails. On a commercial constriction project, they do not stop to sort through or look over the lumber, they just go go go go . Crank those houses out and fix them later if they break. They may not break until the builder is long gone anyway since many builders now disappear a year or so after the last house is sold in the project. Even some of the big companies form small companies to build two or three projects and then disband them. People buy a pinto and then sue because they did nto get a Cadillac.
Fortunately as materials and workmanship quality declined, technology has advanced and partially made up for some of the problems, or even improved overall structural integrity (especially when it comes to foundation/water issues).
So anyway, in this context a "new" house is generally considered on that was built after mass production techniques generally came into widespread use. This means 1950s or 1960s.
Last edited by Coldjensens; 12-18-2011 at 06:06 AM..
I grew up in a house from this era--solid brick construction; living/dining room had 20 ft cathedral ceilings, floor to ceiling solid black walnut paneling, extensive full height windows and sliding glass doors; study with same fenestration and floor to ceiling solid oak paneling (ceilings are only 9 ft); full height rough field stone fireplace that opens to the both the dining room and study; beautiful custom tile work in the bathrooms and kitchen. There's more and this house was truly beautiful by practically anyone's standards (regardless of whether one likes that era of housing). My parents still live there and the place has held up pretty well--not "crummy" or "poor, low end materials" or construction at all. Perhaps, even nicer and better built than your spec house in Broward Co.
Point being: if you don't want others to make blanket statements about the recent era suburban mcmansions, please refrain from making similar disparaging statements about other era/styles of homes unless you've actually seen all the houses of which you speak.
Sounds like a nice custom home. However, the exception doesn't disprove the rule. You can have nice custom built houses in any era, where someone spent significantly more than lets say standard. In my area, and in plenty of areas around the country the 70s and at least early 80s were an era of poor construction quality 3/8ths drywall, slab hollow core doors, cheap carpet and undersized lumber. Forgetting all of this they were plain boxes with shallow roof lines that lacked any architectual interest
you may take the comment poorly as your family owns a high quality house built in that era. However just like youh ave a high quality house from a shoddy era of construction, I have a house we basically built in the psat year, which also is high quality, and the structural, electrical, plumbing and finishes exceed the crappy quailty that passses for Par for the course today.
I grew up in a house from this era--solid brick construction; living/dining room had 20 ft cathedral ceilings, floor to ceiling solid black walnut paneling, extensive full height windows and sliding glass doors; study with same fenestration and floor to ceiling solid oak paneling (ceilings are only 9 ft); full height rough field stone fireplace that opens to the both the dining room and study; beautiful custom tile work in the bathrooms and kitchen. There's more and this house was truly beautiful by practically anyone's standards (regardless of whether one likes that era of housing). My parents still live there and the place has held up pretty well--not "crummy" or "poor, low end materials" or construction at all. Perhaps, even nicer and better built than your spec house in Broward Co.
Point being: if you don't want others to make blanket statements about the recent era suburban mcmansions, please refrain from making similar disparaging statements about other era/styles of homes unless you've actually seen all the houses of which you speak.
FWIW, I live in a mass produced development and the homes here seem to be well built. My cookie cutter house was built in 1996, and definitely has it's share of builder grade materials, but they're holding up well. Over time we've upgraded some of the materials--right now we're putting classier tile in the master bath. However, it's never had a structural problem, and as far as I know neither have the homes of my neighbors.
We've weathered several severe storms in the past few years without problem--blizzards, windstorms, heavy rains with flooding. So far we've had no leaks, no pieces of the house falling off, no bathtubs falling through the ceiling, no evidence of major deterioration. The only thing we've had to do so far is replace some windows because the seal had started to fog up, and replace a piece of trim that a woodpecker was pecking at. Considering that this house is more than 15 years old now I think that's a sign of a well built house.
Of course, it helps that we learned the hard way how to spot problems before buying a house. Interestingly, the way we learned these lessons was when my folks bought a house built in the 1920s. It was their first house, it was cute, it was before home inspections were the norm, and we kids kept insisting it must be a great house because "everyone knows older houses are better built."
Let me tell ya, just because a house is older does not guarantee it's going to be well built.
Problems with the 1920s house included: You could not use the fireplace--it was actually a fire hazard because the bricks had been placed against a pine board backing. There was a bay window that had not been attached properly and leaked every time it rained. The insulation was poorly done and in the winter was a money pit to heat. You could not flush a toilet if someone was taking a shower. There was a "bump out" that had a flat roof that did not drain properly. We always had to make sure to shovel it off after a snow because the bumpout roof wasn't that strong, either.
Lesson learned. I'm a fan of doing inspections now and paying more attention to structural concerns and not so much to cuteness. Also, don't assume that older houses are always well built. And especially don't assume that pre fab modern construction will be poorly built, many cookie cutter houses are very sound. Let go of assumptions and look for structural problems no matter when the house was built.
Last edited by Caladium; 12-20-2011 at 10:52 AM..
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