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formercalifornian, you expressed my sentiments so well that I can't possibly do any better! It's funny how we refer to houses often no more than a few decades old as "older homes". Where I lived in Europe at one time, it was common to see many homes in town dating back to the 14th Century, or earlier. Now those were older homes for certain! I've owned a brand-new condo ('nuff said there), a 1921 copy of a Tuscan farmhouse, a Bermuda-styled ranch and a funny, little Hardiplank cottage along the lines of a cape cod. My all-time fave was the Tuscan farmhouse copy.....fir wood floors, plaster walls, two stone fireplaces, a Romeo & Juliet balcony, quirky, sloping wood-shingle roof, winding staircase, slate terrace, lots of angles and original leaded french windows.....all the charming bells & whistles. But it also had small bedrooms, a lack of closets, a very low ceiling over THE bathtub....yes, just the one main original bathroom for 4 bedrooms upstairs, plus a half bath in the hallway, and shower room in the basement, but no ground floor toilet, no central air conditioning, no den and some honestly fugly tile in the kitchen. But I loved it and loved making the repairs bit by bit because it was a one-of-a-kind and everyone in town knew my house and remarked how chocolate-box pretty it was. It's imperfections were a large part of it's charm and it was fun to find solutions for it's drawbacks. My Bermuda-styled house left me cold......about 3400 s.f.,.... far too spacious except for huge families, rooms so large they dwarfed all the furniture, a massive PIA pool, oversized kitchen, embarrassingly Hollywood-type features, but utterly lacking in character, although very well-constructed and well-kept. Meh.
I'm always stunned when people actually seek out such large, expensive to maintain homes. Some of the over-the-top, massive examples I've seen over the past few years defy belief. I cannot conceive of how the truly vulgar mish-mashes of architectural design and overblown interior features banged together by more recent builders has held appeal for buyers, and not at bargain prices, I might add. I appreciate it's horses for courses and everyone has their own taste, but older and smaller homes have proven to feel more like a "real home" to me and the construction has withstood the test of time with reasonable upkeep. Now if only I could lay hands on one of those 14th C. cottages!
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. My current home is a 76 model and I really like it. My reasoning is simple I just don't like the look or layout of the homes built since the 80's. 
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