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My agent says the house I want to buy is a "tear-down." I say it needs major work, but is not a tear-down. What is your definition of a tear-down? The house I want to buy is sound structurally and has been lived in since the 1940s, but it has never been renovated. It is completely original except the roof and A/C. My agent considers this a tear-down.
I guess another question is: When is it more financially prudent/wise to tear a house down and build a new one, rather to renovate it?
What is going on in the neighborhood? Many times, people want to put thousands upon thousands into a home to fix it up, and when they go to resell it, the next people don't care about the upgrades as they'll just want to tear it down if that's what the neighborhood is doing. Does that make sense? No point in updating a house that someone else isn't going to appreciate as well... but it's all moot if you plan on staying their 10+ years and getting use out of all the renovations and don't care about resale right now.
I'd say that if a house is structurally sound but just needs updating (and perhaps, as you say, a new roof, which all houses need periodically), then barring a lot of other brand new houses in the neighborhood, it's not a teardown.
I've seen way too many houses built new in older neighborhoods that look WAY out of place, alongside original homes that haven't been updated or the same original homes that have been updated while still retaining their charm and the feel of the neighborhood. Saw a few of them, yesterday, in fact, driving around Austin, new, modern homes stuck in the middle of lovely, 1940's neighborhoods, nd every time, my husband's reaction (and mine) was, "How ugly! How out of place! What were they thinking?" and then "Out of state investors who don't give a darn about the neighborhood." Saw some updated period homes and thought, "How lovely. How in keeping with their surroundings."
I've also watched, over time, entire neighborhoods that might have justifiably been considered teardowns by some renovated, hosue by house and street by street, into beautiful (and highly desirable, if what people are willing to pay to live there is anything to go by) neighborhoods that look like they did originally, only with established trees and neighborhood feel.
So, it sort of depends on what your goal is and what the neighborhood is, what the answer to that question is.
What is going on in the neighborhood is that this is one of the last unremodeled colonials. Everything else has either been gutted and rehabbed or torn down and built as new. It's a highly desirable old neighborhood of renovated colonials or new construction (where old colonials were).
I think the real question for me is, which route should I go? The renovation route, or the tear-down/new constr. route. How do people decide these things? Is it more expensive (IN THE LONG RUN) to add 2/3 rooms onto a house and rehab it, or tear down the house and build a new house.....
My goal is to live in this neighborhood until I die, but I do not want to live in or with 1940s bathrooms, house layout, kitchen etc.
To me, a teardown is simply a home with no value, or little value. In other words, the lot itself is worth the same with or without the house.
In some cases, many cases in fact, the home is so functionally obsolete that repair and renovation would cost as much or more than starting from scratch and building new.
Many "tear downs" were recently lived in by someone though, so the term does not necessarily mean "unlivable", just that the economic and/or functional value of the home has fully depreciated.
If you do tear down and build new, please, consider the real foundation of building "green", and build a home that is intended to last for generations, one designed so that it can grow with the needs of future generations, if need be (as older homes often did and still do). Not a throwaway home that will only be useful for one or two generations or until styles change.
You first need to figure out what needs updating... some of these items might be: all new electrical, plumbing, flooring, exterior walls, doors, foundation work, etc. Then you need to figure out if you like the floorplan of the house and the size of the rooms? If you have to replace all of the above, plus do a major renovation to fix the floorplan and room sizes... it might be a teardown. But if your fine with the floorplan and rooms and the house isn't ready to fall down, you should be able to just do a renovation.
When I was house hunting in FL I saw some true tear downs. Houses with so much termite damage that you were afraid to walk on the floors for fear of falling through (and they were asking $120K in a so-so neighborhood for this gem), houses with so much damage from water intrusion that the mold was overwhelming and all of the wood beams were completely rotted ($93K next to a high school), etc.
To me if a house has outdated cabinets & fixtures that does not make it a tear down. *shakes head at the thought of an agent who thinks vintage 1940's should be torn down*
Too many agents are clueless. Construction costs have NOT fallen off nearly as much as selling prices of existing homes. If the home you are considering has NO MAJOR NEGATIVES (obvious stuff would be CONDITION, room number & size, energy features, overall quality) properties that a few years ago would have been prime targets for builders to tear down and infill with new construction NOW might make more sense to purchase, improve slightly and sit tight.
An experienced home inspector can give you details on the mechanical stuff, and some of the structure, but you need to get multiple opinions on the LOCATION and the other features of on older home, as some things really are too expensive to renovate/repair/expand.
Generally the deal killers are stuff that makes it impossible to live in the home -- anything that would fail a "hard inspection" because it is so far removed from current building code is NOT something that you should ignore. If you cannot insure a home / secure financing then it becomes a teardown regardless of what else may have happened...
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