Opinions On Potential Purchase of Old Home

[tolmiros (WavyGlass)]

Hello,

Joined this forum just to make this post, and hope to make many more should I get the house which is the subject of this post. I have an offer on an old home (1897), and was just hoping to get some opinions prior to going through with the purchase. First off, here is the property:

http://www.homepath.com/listing?listingid=38265592

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Positives:

- Privacy, no neighbors.
- Sizeable yard.
- River behind the house.
- Lots of square footage.
- mostly wood floors throughout
- No apparent structural damage
- all outlets and lights appear to work
- metal roof
- no obvious signs of significant foundation trauma in the basement
- good area (I have 2 kids)

Negatives:

- LOTS of detail work to be done. Wood floors need to be refinished, some cracks in walls, missing dry wall on roof in one room, bowed (down) wood floor under a window that must have gotten water damage, some windows and screens need replacing, uneven doors. Kitchen and bathrooms could use remodelling.
- plumbing and boiler / radiator heating system may not have been winterized properly. There are winterized tags on plumbing fixtures, but none on any of the radiators. If my offer is accepted, I will need to have those systems turned on and inspected.
- roof appears uneven at the edge on one side of the house... like the foundation shifted and effected the roof or something.

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I understand I would be getting myself into a ton of work, but am hoping it is a house I could eventually retire in and I could feel relatively safe abou the area. I offered the banks asking price for the house...

Any opinions/advice on anything would be useful... as this is obviously huge decision to make and I am feeling a bit overwhelmed at the prospect currently!

Thanks

[Neighmond]

Get a house inspector, one that knows and likes old houses. A few hundreds now are well spent.

Cheers!

Chaz

[Daniel Meyer]

Do you like working on stuff?

I'm not unbiased...our old Vic needs pretty much everything...

But...the process of fixing things has to be something you enjoy, or something you can afford to shovel money at to enjoy an old home.

But if you do...the rewards are hard to fathom.

[Gothichome]

Tolmiros, from what is see your possable new home is a lot better than what a lot of us have taken on. Daniel has broken the issue down to the basics. If you really like to to work with your hands and don't cringe at spending money. An old home is perfect relaxation, you will never have nothing to do. If you have time, you do not need lots of cash at one time. If you have no, time then lots of cash will be needed.

[SkipW]

+2 on what Daniel said.

Lots of rewards available if working on your house is your hobby, but not if it keeps you from doing what you want to do. If so it will become a major source of frustration. The rewards are great, you can ask anyone here, but so are the disappointments when things go wrong or are way more money that you budgeted (what's that?).

The house from the pictures seems in fine shape, and I like the location. I would love to have a river in my back yard! Neighbors can be highly over rated.....

[historicalwork]

You're probably sick of some of the same old advice - but I would echo the idea of getting a solid home inspector. We had our minds set on a 1886 house of similar style. We were going to do an rehab type loan. I go a bit overboard - but I inspected the septic, well, foundation, chimney, roof, etc. When the home inspector found beetle and termite damage I had an extra termite inspector out and had a structural engineer check the timber joists in the damp crawl space. The attic was not insulated (or vented) and I checked into the cost of insulation and I checked with the power company and oil company to see what was being spent on heating. I also got a couple chimney companies out to get estimates on repairing the failing chimney foundation. This makes it sounds like the house was a wreck - it didn't really seem like it.

At the time I convinced myself all of this was possible to fix or manage. Well, we backed out of the house for more than a few reasons. Within a week we found a lovely house (1905) in generally great shape. We paid more but the things that needed fixing - replacing kitchen floor, fixing a water heater, painting the outside, etc - were all things I can do on my own. The truth is, even this place feels a bit overwhelming at times. I often wonder what i would have done with the other place. I spent about 3K on inspections. But it was money well spent. With a family and a job I really didn't have the time. I wasn't in the position for a full blown project house.

I learned a lot while we were looking at that first house - chimney lining, spray foam insulation, steam heating, moisture in crawl spaces, chloride in well water, beetles and termites in timber, etc. I now see where the cost of ownership comes into play. We came from a small townhouse that was easy to maintain and cheap to heat and cool. That's about all I miss. But I can't avoid the reality of an older home. There needs to be a balance. I don't know what type of home you have now - that's probably a factor. If you live in an older home already, time and skills are on your side, or you have money to burn. it may be a great option. But I would strongly suggest finding someone that can inspect and give you an honest opinion.

Having said all that, I looked at the house using Bing's Birds Eye View. It does look nice a nice house and a lovely location by the river! :/

[tolmiros (WavyGlass)]

Thanks for all the replies! They have been very helpful.

I may qualify for a renovation type loan, so that would help on the financial front. I wouldn't mind tacking on 10-15k on to the loan to get some of the major things taken care of up front. Other than that, it would probably be a long drawn out affair, where I fix things as time and money become available. I live in a house now that was built in the 1940's that has foundation issues, so I am very leary of that.

I didn't go into too much detail in my first post about the issues, but I suspect you guys wouldn't mind some more. Additional problems:

- There is basically a mud room that wraps around a corner of the house and one side of it is has basically only been roughed in. There is some exposed electrical, some new but un-mudded dry wall, and some exposed studs. That being said, there wouldn't be any rush to address that (except for the exposed electrical)
- The cabinets in the kitchen may be salvagable with a bit of sanding and paint, but there is a drop ceiling! yuck What really strange as that there appears to be drywall above the drop ceiling...
- The house has brick, aluminum or vinyl (not sure which) siding, and wood siding. The part that is wood needs to be sanded and painted. Some aluminum siding is missing where someone took out old windows and put in smaller ones leaving a gap in siding around the windows. It might be very hard matching the siding.
- The front door is stuck shut, which could be indicitive of foundation problems there. I noticed outside the door there is a down spout emptying right on to a slab of concrete next to the foundation! Addressing the gutter drainage would be one of my first priorities...
- Some new windows, but eventually the rest might need to be replaced. I am not sure how easy or hard it is to shore up leaky (air) old windows, or if it would be better to replace them entirely? Some windows (in the mud room) have been drywalled in from the inside, but are boarded up on the outside. I assume someone intended to put siding over them on the outside to eliminate them entirely.
- There is a big old intennae fallen over on the metal roof. I (or someone) would need to get up there to take it off and inspect for damage.

.. and LOTS of more smaller misc things like a stair hand rail made out of 2x4's (I guess someone put it up just to pass inspection)

It does have a beautiful fire place with a marble surround and one of those cast iron inserts that you can plug in to run a blower to distribute heat out of it. Also, as some commented on, the location by a river (with a metro park on the other side of the river) and the privacy are the most enticing things about the house! It's such a rare find location wise... that alone almost makes me want the house no matter what condition it's in.... though that is probably terribly naive.

My biggest concern is the radiator / boiler heating system. There are lots of 'old style' radiators, but some of the baseboard kind throughout the house. I read that you should not mix those two types on the same zone... so not sure if they are. There are two thermostats downstais, and one upstairs that I seen. I have ZERO experience with this kind of heating... heck, I don't even know how to turn it on. I already contacted a company that would be willing to come out, turn on, and test out the system... but was hoping someone here could give me some advice on turning on / inspecting one of these systems that have been off for awhile? Also, any thoughts in general on the pro's and con's of such a system? I have read up on it, but first hand accounts would be very valuable to me.

Also, the tips on ponying up the dough for good inspectos is appreciated. I will probably have several different people come out specializing in different things. Is it worth it to get a structural engineer, or would a good general inspector be sufficient to check out the foundation?

If I go out to the house again (assuming my offer isn't rejected) I will make sure and take and post some pictures.

Thanks again! Hopefully this wall of text wasn't too daunting to read.

[historicalwork]

On the loan, we tried for an FHA 203K loan. I can share my two cents on that if you go that direction. Are you saying you have a mix of hot water baseboard and hot water radiators? Our hot water boiler is about 40 years old and is basically some rust holding together. We have baseboard throughout but they did include a hot water radiator in the remodeled bathroom. But it works nicely. I don't know if there is a problem with using an "old" type radiator along with baseboard.

I would start with a solid home inspector that knows old homes. Because they can then recommend when they need other inspections beyond their expertise (e.g. structural engineer, electrician, etc). But I good home inspector can do some of the basic system checks. They should be able to offer basic information on heating, electrical, etc. There is no doubt some home inspectors are a waste of money. We paid $550 for our home inspection. I also did septic ($400) and well yield and quality ($500). Because the house had potential historical termite damage and beetle damage, the inspector recommended a structural engineer to check the partial stone foundation and timber joists. I paid $600 for that. Here again, they limit it to "visual inspection" - it's peace of mind but no guarantee.

I spent time on a couple places looking for an inspector. While not a lot of traffic, I enjoyed reading through posts on the http://www.inspectorsjournal.com/ forum. And on that forum seem to be a couple guys that do old houses (I don't know the areas). I also tried to look for those inspectors that had the extra training from NACHI (http://www.nachi.org/historic-homes.htm). I don't think the training itself means they know more. But I figured if they took the training it would suggest an interest in inspecting older homes.

And I would add that I looked for a guy that actually lived in an older home. I figured they would spot things or perhaps care more about things in an older home they inspected.

[Lauren674 (WavyGlass)]

It looks like a nice house. Yeah, these old houses are a lot of work, you really have to get into that type of thing to keep doing it. Our house was in pretty good shape when we moved in, and yet we've worked sort of continuously on it for over ten years. We're not fast, but a lot has been done.

[tolmiros (WavyGlass)]

On the loan, we tried for an FHA 203K loan. I can share my two cents on that if you go that direction. Are you saying you have a mix of hot water baseboard and hot water radiators? Our hot water boiler is about 40 years old and is basically some rust holding together. We have baseboard throughout but they did include a hot water radiator in the remodeled bathroom. But it works nicely. I don't know if there is a problem with using an "old" type radiator along with baseboard.

I would start with a solid home inspector that knows old homes. Because they can then recommend when they need other inspections beyond their expertise (e.g. structural engineer, electrician, etc). But I good home inspector can do some of the basic system checks. They should be able to offer basic information on heating, electrical, etc. There is no doubt some home inspectors are a waste of money. We paid $550 for our home inspection. I also did septic ($400) and well yield and quality ($500). Because the house had potential historical termite damage and beetle damage, the inspector recommended a structural engineer to check the partial stone foundation and timber joists. I paid $600 for that. Here again, they limit it to "visual inspection" - it's peace of mind but no guarantee.

I spent time on a couple places looking for an inspector. While not a lot of traffic, I enjoyed reading through posts on the http://www.inspectorsjournal.com/ forum. And on that forum seem to be a couple guys that do old houses (I don't know the areas). I also tried to look for those inspectors that had the extra training from NACHI (http://www.nachi.org/historic-homes.htm). I don't think the training itself means they know more. But I figured if they took the training it would suggest an interest in inspecting older homes.

And I would add that I looked for a guy that actually lived in an older home. I figured they would spot things or perhaps care more about things in an older home they inspected.

That's correct. It is a mix of hot water radiator and hot water base board. It is either going to be an FHA 203k loan or a fannie mae homepath loan. The homepath loan is much preferrable if the house qualifies for it, or so I understand. That being said, I am still interested in your thoughts on the FHA 203k loan because it is likely it won't qualify for the homepath loan due to some of the repairs it needs.

Thanks for the inspection links and recommendations, I will definately use that when/if the time comes. I submitted the offer last Friday, and am getting antsy to hear the response.