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The good thing?
Not hardly. Homes of that age that have been "upgraded" or "remodeled" have usually been hacked too death! One of my "favorite" parts of doing restoration is finding all the hacked-up floor joists, half-assed repairs of termite damage, and on, and on, and on. All of which will need to come out and be redone anyway- there's been almost endless documentation of this on "This Old House".
May look "good" on the surface, but...
If the house was owned by someone who did not have resources or taste, who knows what might have been done to it?
And like our aging bodies, houses age. Some of them age badly. Those that have gotten good care, will have aged less awfully.
Quality? That covers a broad spectrum. The older houses, pre 50's, had a lot of craftsmanship in them. But like the old man that taught me the trade said, "you could have 10 contractors build the same house and all 10 house come out different....couple of them even right". The build was totally dependent on the expertise of the guy swinging the hammer. Today we have panel wall construction which is an engineered system that places the lumber exactly where it works the best. I'm a believer in panel wall construction mostly because there is so little field expertise anymore. All the framer has to do is get the panel in the correct orientation, place it, and bolt it down. No engineering degree required, no real experience required if he can read the instructions on how to assemble it. So a current panel wall house is structurally far better than the old houses and it has also provided us with houses that are more diversified than the square rooms of old. Fit and finish. The old Craftsmen are just about history and due to politics, there's not going to be many around in a few years either. People do not stay in the trades anymore due to lack of any kind of job security. The mortgage crunch is a good example at how fickle the industry is. As far as total quality, you're going to be hard pressed to beat a current, correctly built home. They are far better built structurally, far better energy wise, far healthier, and far more pleasing to meeting the needs of the family. They also require far less maintenance.
The good thing?
Not hardly. Homes of that age that have been "upgraded" or "remodeled" have usually been hacked too death! One of my "favorite" parts of doing restoration is finding all the hacked-up floor joists, half-assed repairs of termite damage, and on, and on, and on. All of which will need to come out and be redone anyway- there's been almost endless documentation of this on "This Old House".
May look "good" on the surface, but...
Around here, it seems that nicer older homes start at about $40k less (2k sq ft $160k vs $200k) so there's already some cushion built in. My older (60s) home was about 60% less than having similarly sized brick home built or one built within the last 10 years...in 3 years the only non-cosmetic repair I've made was a new roof (which probably had another 5 years in it). Knock on wood. And it's a lot harder to find new construction within 2 miles of the city/restaurants/stores,etc.
Houses of the 70s are probably the worst. A big issues is that building standards were changing rapidly and often without any proven building science behind the changes, so that "improvements" turned out to be worse than earlier construction and those innovations had to be disavowed.
One thing I notice about 70s homes is that I see more of them that are all original compared to previous decades. This can often make the quality seem worse than it is (not that it's great to begin with it). There are still a lot of original owners living in 70s homes so if they never did any remodeling everything has around 40 years of wear on it. My parents are one of those people - bought a brand new house in '77 and never did anything to it (aside from HVAC/carpet) until they moved in 2009. Considering a lot of the ranch style homes are brick, the exteriors hold up really well. Since the market crashed, 70s homes seem to be the most popular with flippers...the huge supply and often original condition means they can buy them cheap/remodel and sell for a nice profit.
My 1965 house was built worse than my circa 1979 house. Neither had true walls. But if I had my preference, it would be the circa 1979 house which I lived in from 1986-2012. The older house was a subdivision house, and the newer one had built on spec by a developer. The latter house had some probs which kept it from selling quickly. It lacked roomy closets and a master bath, for instance. But it had a better setting, really pretty fireplaces and lots of general living space. But, houses get dated. In our case, the house had skimpy trim, rough woodwork around the open stairwell, and really sub par kitchen and bath cabinetry. Because we lived there so long, we put lots of money into the house over time. We redid the kitchen and baths and re carpeted twice.
We also put in a good furnace and air conditioner and a new roof. We upgraded our front door.
If we had bought an older house there is no telling what all we would have had to do!
One thing I really like about our present house, circa 2002, is the sufficiency of electric outlets in every room and hall. We have outlets outside as well. And we have large bathrooms and many closets. There are also some nice details in the house that make it feel gracious.
Saying that older homes are better than newer homes does not reflect the diversity of both older and newer homes. There are all sorts of older and newer homes out there. What matters is the quality of the specific home you want to buy, how it would meet your needs, and how much of your resources would you have to allocate it to make it right for you.
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