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The home inspector told us (for a 20 yo home) -" heating and cooling unit is funtional but at the end of its "economic " life"
In other words he said it could last 5 mo or 5 years - no crystal ball there!
How much $$ am I looking down the road if the heating and cooling had to replaced AFTER I bought the home/moved in ?
We just bought a neglected older home (70's ranch) in the best neighborhood in our town. We bought it for the location and it's size/floorplan. We don't mind doing the work to fix it up, and we got a really good deal on it. We aren't necessarily looking at our home as an investment, as we don't intend to flip it or sell anytime soon, and who knows it may be our forever home that we pass down to the kids when we kick it... but in the back of our minds it does feel comforting knowing that when/if we do ever sell for whatever reason, we'll hopefully have done well and can sell it for more than we bought it for. Not to mention that in fixing it up ourselves, we can make sure things are done right and exactly how we want them to be.
New homes, I dunno... they are like new cars these days. They don't really improve in value much, and just sit there and fall apart because they are built so poorly and so quickly by people that don't really put much care or thought into what they are doing. They feel so soulless. We've watched a lot of new homes go up in different locations and it's ridiculous the kinds of things you see - trash inside walls that they don't even bother to remove before putting insulation in or drywall up... nails they put in that aren't even in the right spots... joints that don't match up right. It's really awful. And two families we know who recently (in the past three years) bought new homes, already they are having problems with dry rot and mold problems and such because of shoddy construction as well as poor-quality materials (one home was made with Chinese drywall that is crumbling away... it's a 4 year old house!!).
We also prefer the older establish neighborhoods because they usually have mature trees, beautiful gardens, charm and spirit, etc. You'll eventually hopefully have those things in new neighborhoods, too, but we're inpatient.
How much $$ am I looking down the road if the heating and cooling had to replaced AFTER I bought the home/moved in ?
Not that much, in the grand scheme of things. Cheaper than a new roof, that's for sure.
My current furnace is 38 years old. I know I should replace it, and I know the new furnace will be more efficient, but no way will a new furnace last 38 years!
That's the thing about owning a home. Things need to be maintained and replaced. Oh, the horror!
I like the building standards of the 80's and 90's, but I saw some horrible construction in the 2000's during the housing bubble. Some of the 2004-ish housing developments are going to have to be torn down before their original 30 yr mortgages are up.
Keep in mind, different builders do different quality work in any time period. You can find 2004 houses that are well built, and 1994 houses that are terrible. The one thing you can't change is location, so start with that first.
New construction is really risky as builders are over worked and overwhelmed. In order to build as many cookie cutters as they can, many are cutting corners.
It depends on the house, the builder, the location, your needs.
We live in a 10 year old house that feels solid to me. It is in a nice, but not snobby, neighborhood where everyone keeps their places up to snuff. It is the kind of neighborhood we were looking for in retirement. We don't have time to do massive upgrades. I don't know how long we will live here, but our time here could be shorter than I want. So you see my point.
If you have the skills and dedication to take on a quality fixer, and the neighborhood is excellent and meets your needs, then why not go for it? Not all builder homes are dreadful. The nice thing about buying a 10 or 15 year old home is that you can tell from observing if it is well built and if it has been properly maintained. Even if the floor plan is outdated, the house will "tell" you a lot about its quality. And of course you can take a home inspector with you on a visit, even before you write a contract.
Last summer, we looked at 2 upscale homes, aged about 25 years old in a really upscale neighborhood we wanted to live in. We couldn't buy them though because the homes had not been updated. In one case, the home had not been well maintained. We were looking at 10s of thousands to update either, and we just can't do that at this time in our life. Your situation might be different.
Just remember that if you estimate that a change will cost you $20,000, it will probably really cost more like $30,000. You just can't know until you start doing stuff. Any older house has secrets you won't know till you are changing it.
And, a lot depends on your goals. Do you intend to sell eventually? Stay there till retirement? Are the schools good? So many questions.
I think I have written here somewhere that the house I lived in that was built in 1965 was the least well-built house of any I had lived in as an adult. The house I lived in after, built in 1978, was built better. It is pointless to make sweeping generalizations about quality.
For the custom house, investigate who built it, and if the original owners still live there. "Custom" does not always mean what you think it means. My last house was listed as "custom" but had been simply built on spec.
I like the idea of buying a brand new home the least well of your three options.
Depends on your priorities. I would go with location and land surrounding the home. In the Seattle metro, older homes are on much larger lots while new homes have decks built almost to the back fence.
The mantra has always been location, location, location. This from someone whose last two purchases were new homes.
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