4 ms·

In the US, you get what you pay for. Housing being as expensive as it is, basically all new builds are being built as cheaply as possible while builders cash in

In the US, you get what you pay for. Housing being as expensive as it is, basically all new builds are being built as cheaply as possible while builders cash in on the market. The fact that all inspections (at least in the areas I know of) are STILL being done virtually, or not at all, only adds to the corners currently being cut. Older houses tend to be much higher quality. You can obviously find custom homes or more expensive homes built with better materials, but according to my contacts in the home building business, ~90% of homes being built right now are the bare minimum required to get the customer to buy, and most of them wouldn't meet regulatory requirements because the inspections just weren't done.

carabiner 5y ago
Why are older homes in the US generally cheaper if they are also better quality?
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Because people don’t want to deal with old wiring, lead paint, and old pipes. I.e. they are not better quality. I would never choose an old US suburban house over a new US suburban house. The standards have been greatly raised, the materials and technology have greatly advanced.
  - Ancapistani 5y ago
    I feel like I got the "best of both worlds" here. My home was built in the 1970s, at the same time as most of the others in the neighborhood. There was a fire that gutted about half of the home in ~2008, and as a result the entire electrical system, internal plumbing, insulation, and most of the windows were replaced. Because of this the home was priced like others from the 70s, but I'm very confident that I won't have any major and unexpected structural, electrical, or plumbing issues in the near future. The only real downsides are that there isn't a basement (I have a dirt crawlspace, with a ~10x10 area dug out enough to stand up for the water heaters and such), and I own one of the few homes inside city limits with a septic tank. City code prevents me from making major repairs on the septic system, so within the next few years I'll need to connect the home to the sewer. That's going to cost between ~$500 (if I do the work myself, which will probably take about a week of full-time, dirty work) and ~$10k (if I just pay someone to do it all). I'll likely end up hiring someone to dig the trench needed in the front yard and in the crawlspace but do the rest myself.
- oyashirochama 5y ago
  Because they are harder to modernize with eletric runs and other issues such as lattice plaster walls which cause insane interference of Wi-Fi or other wireless technologies.
  - bjterry 5y ago
    These walls are typically called "lath and plaster." A lath is a narrow slat of wood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lath_and_plaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lath_and_plaster
- handrous 5y ago
  In addition to what other people have mentioned, in my city, nearly all new builds are in decent to good school districts, while most houses over ~25 years old are in declining or already-bad school districts. If you deliberately set out to find a 50+ year old house in my city, the only options in decent school districts would be a handful of very old farm houses that've managed to survive the building of the suburbs, so you'd have to hope the ~10 of those that come on the market in a given year were something you wanted. There are some very nice older houses in the city, but the only people who buy those can afford both the house and private school.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

carabiner 5y ago

Why are older homes in the US generally cheaper if they are also better quality?

lotsofpulp 5y ago
Because people don’t want to deal with old wiring, lead paint, and old pipes. I.e. they are not better quality. I would never choose an old US suburban house over a new US suburban house. The standards have been greatly raised, the materials and technology have greatly advanced.
- Ancapistani 5y ago
  I feel like I got the "best of both worlds" here. My home was built in the 1970s, at the same time as most of the others in the neighborhood. There was a fire that gutted about half of the home in ~2008, and as a result the entire electrical system, internal plumbing, insulation, and most of the windows were replaced. Because of this the home was priced like others from the 70s, but I'm very confident that I won't have any major and unexpected structural, electrical, or plumbing issues in the near future. The only real downsides are that there isn't a basement (I have a dirt crawlspace, with a ~10x10 area dug out enough to stand up for the water heaters and such), and I own one of the few homes inside city limits with a septic tank. City code prevents me from making major repairs on the septic system, so within the next few years I'll need to connect the home to the sewer. That's going to cost between ~$500 (if I do the work myself, which will probably take about a week of full-time, dirty work) and ~$10k (if I just pay someone to do it all). I'll likely end up hiring someone to dig the trench needed in the front yard and in the crawlspace but do the rest myself.
oyashirochama 5y ago
Because they are harder to modernize with eletric runs and other issues such as lattice plaster walls which cause insane interference of Wi-Fi or other wireless technologies.
- bjterry 5y ago
  These walls are typically called "lath and plaster." A lath is a narrow slat of wood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lath_and_plaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lath_and_plaster
handrous 5y ago
In addition to what other people have mentioned, in my city, nearly all new builds are in decent to good school districts, while most houses over ~25 years old are in declining or already-bad school districts. If you deliberately set out to find a 50+ year old house in my city, the only options in decent school districts would be a handful of very old farm houses that've managed to survive the building of the suburbs, so you'd have to hope the ~10 of those that come on the market in a given year were something you wanted. There are some very nice older houses in the city, but the only people who buy those can afford both the house and private school.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]