My window anomaly

[Nicholas]

Hi all,

Apparently earlier either my evil twin, or maybe my cat, took over my keyboard while drunk on coffee.

Basically, what I discovered is that my windows originally were longer, I can see where they should have been which I noticed when we purchased the house. They have been resized when they installed the awning jalousies. I wish I caught it sooner I would have gone back to the original size. It would have been a simple fix, but I am thinking these would today be a custom size.

Other older houses in this are that are not in the district have resized them to the point that they have lost a lot of character, giving them a modern appearance.

It bugs me, but maybe I will do at least the porch and front windows at some point.

[Gothichome]

All part of the history or charm of an old home Nicholas. We now (as old home folks) shake our heads at what was done in the past before they became old homes.
As far as old windows being modified to the point of looking like new windows, we’ll i just have to ask the question, why would you buy and old home only to make it look like a new home?

[Manalto]

...why would you buy and old home only to make it look like a new home?

"That's all I could afford."

This is the statement made to me by an acquaintance (who also lives in an old house) when I was blabbing on about how I enjoyed the experience of living in an old house, assuming that he shared my enthusiasm. In this era of expediency, turn-key houses are the most marketable and old houses (except for the grandest ones) are perceived as a headache. My perception (and I hope I'm wrong) is that the market for historic houses is weakening, except in high property value areas where gutting, or worse, razing is the norm.

[GinaC]

I think it needs to be corrected to "That's all I could afford, and I'm too lazy to research or DIY."

[phil]

I never heard the word before, what the heck is a Jalousie? ...

This site explains why you should opt to change your heritage home into something more modern It's a new window ad disguised as helpful advice. I felt it was quite misleading and this sort of thing is exactly the kind of misinformation that causes people to convert their nice old houses into new garbage.

"because wood siding is more expensive to purchase, takes longer to install, and requires more maintenance down the road – it’s hard to argue with vinyl."

"Grrrrrr" !

https://www.4feldco.com/articles/jalousie-windows/

[Lily left the valley]

Nicholas, we have a lot of overall upmuddles around here. Some over time, some recent. (Two shining examples of "WHY OH WHY" in particular spring to mind less than a 5 minute walk from our house.)

We likely have mostly asbestos shingles over a thin board insulation over the original wood siding because at the time insulation was a smart thing to do and the shingles were a no maintenance miracle fix before vinyl siding became the new no maintenance miracle fix. Putting in smaller or even sometimes larger windows were also considered "improvements", for the former being a smaller breach to allow air leakage for energy savings, the latter due to fire code. And so on, and so on, and so it goes.

I apologize in advance, but regarding why there seems to be less people buying old houses that actually want them to be what they are, I did not have time to make this list more concise.

I think here in modern times U.S. at least, these are a few scenarios as to why in no particular order other than how they came to mind:
1) A break in the inheritance chain. Adult child gets job elsewhere. Parents pass on, adult child decides the childhood home is too far away for commuting/no job prospects worth moving back. House goes up for sale.

2) Some adult children that normally would have moved towards home ownership instead moved back in with their parents as they can't even afford to pay rent/student loans with their low wage jobs if they've even managed to find jobs.

3) Some folks rent as they don't want to be tied down to a house even if they can afford one because they think they'll be gig/contract/job hopping their entire lives so renting is best for mobility.

4) Some folks rent because their financials still have not recovered from the housing crash/job loss when they may have lost their home to foreclosure.

5) Wages have not kept up with inflation, and buying power is in the toilet for most Americans with many deep in debt, so forget getting approved for a mortgage.

6) Other folks see an older home typically listed as a fixer upper as a short term affordable "starter home" to get out of a tight and expensive rental market because they do qualify for one of the low income mortgage programs. If they absolutely have to fix something, they'll do it as cheap as they can.

7) Property management companies swoop in to buy up fixer uppers (sometimes in bulk at auctions/cash in full), upmuddle them to whatever degree, then rent them out for long term gain further depleting available housing stock.

8) Flippers also buy bulk/pay cash if they can swing it. They typically further the upmuddled pool which is more work to undo, and also inflates prices to the direct opposition of what old home owners crave. (More on this below further down.)

Now think of all the potential old home lovers
that deep down do want an old home they can restore/enjoy,
but were prevented by whatever in the list above.

Now, taking the list above and applying it to our personal experiences...
We have been directly affected to one degree or another by every one of those items listed above except for #s 1 (no homes to inherit), and 6 where we deliberately were seeking an old home because we qualified for a low income program and our collective household expenses with a mortgage would be cheaper than rent, thus not using it as a quick stepping stone to be dumped later.

Here in what's called a "dead mill" MA town, even with the pandemic the market is hot. The bulk of the homes (single or multi family) were built in the pre-early 30's furniture factory boom time before the Great Depression caught up with them, then construction revived with the 40's war boom. If you look at RE sites, it's newer builds or upmuddles galore are fetching hefty prices for being so far from Boston or even Worcester (remember, New England...commuting worse in snow).

By the time we came here in 2016 it was already a town with many upmuddles and vinyl sidings and windows all over (and often turning a formerly open porch into a three season too). We have no structures historic preservation of any kind, and the town is just now putting in water main bypasses and replacing the original early 1900's main pipes because it's a dead mill town that's broke but they just couldn't put it off anymore because the newer edge of town HOA developments are good at rattling City Hall's cage when they don't have water for days on end. Even though we live in "Taxachussets", it's still cheaper in a better amenities in/nearby town than where we were in near scant few amenities in upper Northwestern NJ.

Our small city has become a bedroom community of sorts for both Worcester and even Boston. Partly due to people being priced out of anything inside the 405 to Boston, and Worcester has its own thing going on as more health care businesses move there driving prices up. Boston also since they added back in the nearest section of the discontinued purple line (commuter train). We are the next stop out and were scheduled to be done after, but is likely postponed now, I haven't checked the status lately. So it's attracting home buyers, but more the type that won't buy here because they love all the old homes, but because it's way more affordable than new or old inside the 405 and the commute isn't that much more awful than the awful commute they likely already had.

It was already a practice when we moved here for real estate investors to buy distressed older homes, wait until they get condemned, then cash out on insurance. There's also a fella owns most of downtown that the city has been condemning in stages for years to try to get it away from him since he is a worst case landlord to residential and business tenants alike. Most of the buildings they wrested from him so far have been torn down due to no funds to make them habitable (plus all the remediation needed for asbestos/lead/et al. They did manage to save one, but the funds dried up soon after hence the others no longer existing.

Homes are also being bought up by the above mentioned property management type companies, though they tend to stick to the multis and four squares. They've even started filing the paperwork to some SFHs they've bought to break them up into "condos" per floor. I wish I was kidding.

Lastly, flippers snap the fixer upper single families more often than compete for the multis as soon as they hit the market, no matter how small the footprint or if there is no parking. Sometimes all they do is upgrade wiring and attic insulation, other times it's all upmuddling, depending.
Like this reno flip one (The street view is off because of where the camera stopped--it's that tiny white house you can see past the gray one on the left with the bushes. If you head 2 up arrow clicks, you'll see how tiny it is.)
or this wire and insulation only one.

At this rate, as more older residents die off and no old home lovers move in, the entire place will be a further cry from even as far as it had been remuddled when we moved here in 2016. Just since we've moved here, we have seen at least a half dozen neighbors just within a block walk that either moved to senior care or passed on and the children or whatever estate sold the home to strangers, one of which I just linked about. Granted, some of them were "updated over time" with vinyl windows and such, but not all.

Again, sorry this is so long. I did not have time to edit it down better.

[Lily left the valley]

Nicholas, we have a lot of overall upmuddles around here. Some over time, some recent. (Two shining examples of "WHY OH WHY" in particular spring to mind less than a 5 minute walk from our house.)

We likely have mostly asbestos shingles over a thin board insulation over the original wood siding because at the time insulation was a smart thing to do and the shingles were a no maintenance miracle fix before vinyl siding became the new no maintenance miracle fix. Putting in smaller or even sometimes larger windows were also considered "improvements", for the former being a smaller breach to allow air leakage for energy savings, the latter due to fire code. And so on, and so on, and so it goes.

I apologize in advance, but regarding why there seems to be less people buying old houses that actually want them to be what they are, I did not have time to make the remainder of this post more concise.

I think here in modern times U.S. at least, these are a few scenarios as to why in no particular order other than how they came to mind:
1) A break in the inheritance chain. Adult child gets job elsewhere. Parents pass on, adult child decides the childhood home is too far away for commuting/no job prospects worth moving back. House goes up for sale.

2) Some adult children that normally would have moved towards home ownership instead moved back in with their parents as they can't even afford to pay rent/student loans with their low wage jobs if they've even managed to find jobs.

3) Some folks rent as they don't want to be tied down to a house even if they can afford one because they think they'll be gig/contract/job hopping their entire lives so renting is best for mobility.

4) Some folks rent because their financials still have not recovered from the housing crash/job loss when they may have lost their home to foreclosure.

5) Wages have not kept up with inflation, and buying power is in the toilet for most Americans with many deep in debt, so forget getting approved for a mortgage.

6) Other folks see an older home typically listed as a fixer upper as a short term affordable "starter home" to get out of a tight and expensive rental market because they do qualify for one of the low income mortgage programs. If they absolutely have to fix something, they'll do it as cheap as they can.

7) Property management companies swoop in to buy up fixer uppers (sometimes in bulk at auctions/cash in full), upmuddle them to whatever degree, then rent them out for long term gain further depleting available housing stock.

8) Flippers also buy bulk/pay cash if they can swing it. They typically further the upmuddled pool which is more work to undo, and also inflates prices to the direct opposition of what old home owners crave. (More on this below further down.)

Now think of all the potential old home lovers
that deep down do want an old home they can restore/enjoy,
but were prevented by whatever in the list above.

Now, taking the list above and applying it to our personal experiences...
We have been directly affected to one degree or another by every one of those items listed above except for #s 1 (no homes to inherit), and 6 where we deliberately were seeking an old home because we qualified for a low income program and our collective household expenses with a mortgage would be cheaper than rent, thus not using it as a quick stepping stone to be dumped later.

Here in what's called a "dead mill" MA town, even with the pandemic the market is hot. The bulk of the homes (single or multi family) were built in the pre-early 30's furniture factory boom time before the Great Depression caught up with them, then construction revived with the 40's war boom. If you look at RE sites, it's newer builds or upmuddles galore are fetching hefty prices for being so far from Boston or even Worcester (remember, New England...commuting worse in snow).

By the time we came here in 2016 it was already a town with many upmuddles and vinyl sidings and windows all over (and often turning a formerly open porch into a three season too). We have no structures historic preservation of any kind, and the town is just now putting in water main bypasses and replacing the original early 1900's main pipes because it's a dead mill town that's broke but they just couldn't put it off anymore because the newer edge of town HOA developments are good at rattling City Hall's cage when they don't have water for days on end. Even though we live in "Taxachussets", it's still cheaper in a better amenities in/nearby town than where we were in near scant few amenities in upper Northwestern NJ.

Our small city has become a bedroom community of sorts for both Worcester and even Boston. Partly due to people being priced out of anything inside the 405 to Boston, and Worcester has its own thing going on as more health care businesses move there driving prices up. Boston also since they added back in the nearest section of the discontinued purple line (commuter train). We are the next stop out and were scheduled to be done after, but is likely postponed now, I haven't checked the status lately. So it's attracting home buyers, but more the type that won't buy here because they love all the old homes, but because it's way more affordable than new or old inside the 405 and the commute isn't that much more awful than the awful commute they likely already had.

It was already a practice when we moved here for real estate investors to buy distressed older homes, wait until they get condemned, then cash out on insurance. There's also a fella owns most of downtown that the city has been condemning in stages for years to try to get it away from him since he is a worst case landlord to residential and business tenants alike. Most of the buildings they wrested from him so far have been torn down due to no funds to make them habitable (plus all the remediation needed for asbestos/lead/et al. They did manage to save one, but the funds dried up soon after hence the others no longer existing.

Homes are also being bought up by the above mentioned property management type companies, though they tend to stick to the multis and four squares. They've even started filing the paperwork to some SFHs they've bought to break them up into "condos" per floor. I wish I was kidding.

Lastly, flippers snap the fixer upper single families more often than compete for the multis as soon as they hit the market, no matter how small the footprint or if there is no parking. Sometimes all they do is upgrade wiring and attic insulation, other times it's all upmuddling, depending.
Like this reno flip one (The street view is off because of where the camera stopped--it's that tiny white house you can see past the gray one on the left with the bushes. If you head 2 up arrow clicks, you'll see how tiny it is.)
or this wire and insulation only one.

At this rate, as more older residents die off and no old home lovers move in, the entire place will be a further cry from even as far as it had been remuddled when we moved here in 2016. Just since we've moved here, we have seen at least a half dozen neighbors just within a block walk that either moved to senior care or passed on and the children or whatever estate sold the home to strangers, one of which I just linked about. Granted, some of them were "updated over time" with vinyl windows and such, but not all.

Again, sorry this is so long. I did not have time to edit it down better.

[Nicholas]

Phil: As seen in your link, jalousies are the glass strips that all crank open together. very bad at keeping temperature out, also still seen on many Florida homes along with plastic pink lawn flamingos and shuffle board courts. Awning jalousies are larger panes that open the same way, (See: first pic in blog below)

Gothic, true. The ones in the back of the home, much older, where the multi windows are, that use to be a porch. Those were older, possibly 50's, totally different design mechanically. I think the ones in the rest of the house date to the 70's, when they became more popular than the glass strips, at least they sealed.

To the rest, thanx for the replies, again, this was all done when the place started to fall apart, and history was not an issue, fixing it as cheap as possible was.

[Nicholas]

Nicholas, we have a lot of overall upmuddles around here. Some over time, some recent. (Two shining examples of "WHY OH WHY" in particular spring to mind less than a 5 minute walk from our house.)

Hi Lily, finally got around to reading your post.

I am discouraged at what happened in my City Of Brotherly Love, a city full of old character houses on some streets so narrow you can only park on one side and half on the sidewalk if at all.

Apparently the city got the idea that modern is better, and The famous "South Street", which is a tourist area of nightlife in south Philly is an example, where they have these modern places up against totally original almost 200 year old homes/shops. Not as much character at all.

Also the Fishtown section Delaware river front area, former poor working class, with homes almost 200 years old, now high dollar real estate.

So what do they do? They either tear down and replace with homes that almost look like the original, or they replace with "Jetson" style idiocy.

Sucks. Glad I don't live there anyway, for a lot of reasons.

[Lily left the valley]

Crumbs. I don't know why it double posted (oh so slightly different time stamp). I didn't even notice that. Aand it must be a glitch because I tried to delete first one, then the other it said I can't delete a post someone replied to.

Anyhoo!

As to loss of character, I've been around places that go both ways. Teetering into obscurity and staunchly but slowly bringing attention to historic homes and other old buildings. Most are kind of like here...some get saved, some do not. Some get buried under upmuddles until they get saved later.