Buying A House: C or D?

If it’s a two year old house you need to worry about it falling down when the previous owners slam the door and run away. Modern building is rubbish, everyone I know whose moves into a new or nearly new house across three continents has had no end of issues with shitty workmanship, poor design and crappy materials. My brother is moving out after 2 years in a new place as they are sick of fixing stuff that wasn’t done properly in the first place.

Every house I’ve lived in has been riddled with nail holes and picture hangers and I’ve personally made no effort to patch any of these before I moved out of them. It’s just part of the deal in old houses.

The newest place I’ve ever lived was built in 1963 and I find it reassuring to know that any major things have settled or been fixed long before I lived there. My current place is from 1938 and is made of concrete block; even if the inside burned out I imagine the exterior shell would be totally unscathed

our new house was built in 1908 and has issues that need to be addressed (particularly the chimney which appears to be on its last legs) and i want to thank marcos bc this comment has given me a lot of comfort recently:

lately instead of being terrified of owning a 110-year-old house I have been relieved - if it's still intact like it is after that long it'll probably be ok under my tenure

― marcos

also another vote for wtf who bothers closing up nail holes???

oh god the English house-buying system is ridiculous as everything takes SOOO LONG

haven't bought a house for 17 years, is there a SYSTEM now?

If ringing & emailing your solicitor every day until they deign to talk to you is a system then sure.

We went from offer to completion in 65 days which is apparently something of a record, is it quicker elsewhere? God knows what takes so long, unless you're buying in birmingham where the local searches take seven weeks :(

I think when my partner bought this year it was offer to closing in about 5 weeks?

i’d rather holes be left alone tbh—when i moved in i could decide rather to reuse them or just patch them myself and know that i was doing it correctly.

*whether to reuse

if only I was just dealing nail holes. If you sold it "as is" I wouldn't bother.

What else are you all leaving behind?

https://i.imgur.com/SWP9toe.png

Christian babies

oh god the English house-buying system is ridiculous as everything takes SOOO LONG

― kinder, Friday, 6 July 2018 12:22 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I’m selling my london flat right now and it’s taken 6 months to unpick the feudal freehold/leasehold tangle to the satisfaction of the buyers.

Yeah selling our flat was a terrible experience

Modern building is rubbish, everyone I know whose moves into a new or nearly new house across three continents has had no end of issues with shitty workmanship, poor design and crappy materials.

That's so true! Is building high quality houses really a lost art?

I don't know if it's like this everywhere, but around here the difference between pre and post WWII houses is crazy. Everything just went to shit

It is possible to get a new house built well, but you have to be involved, commodity builders just don’t give a fuck.

Especially as many are building for buy to let landlords who equally don’t give a fuck. We’ve just tried to get the bathroom regrouped and sealed by ge landlord because water is deep behind the tiles and into the walls and floor. The landlord just declined to do it after getting the quote, it’s a few hundred dollars. There will be a much more expensive expensive rot problem in a few years.

Oh well we did our duty as tenants to report it now it’s his problem. In the mean time the balcony got hit by a truck again, which means more water is getting into the balcony woodwork - more rot to come.

Plywood is worse now but much safer. Drywall is better now than 50 years ago. Contemporary lumber is predictably much worse. Whenever possible I go to the architectural salvage yard to pick up lumber for my projects.

Advanced modern techniques for creating energy efficient homes are the best they’ve ever been, but builders have to be conscientious and said methods and materials in order for them to actually work.

I want to hear about more yard upkeep shakedowns.

I don't know if it's like this everywhere, but around here the difference between pre and post WWII houses is crazy. Everything just went to shit

― Dan I.

the shitty pre-wwii houses aren't around anymore for comparison.

my pre-WWII house is way sturdier, but I sometimes envy the room sizes and storage space of newer houses

I envy modern 2x6 framing that allows you to hide DWV pipes inside the walls.

UK ILXORS ONLY should i tip the removal guys?

Oh yeah, true point about survival bias arising from the shitty older houses being long gone by now

I want to hear about more yard upkeep shakedowns.

ha, well, it's been pretty quiet. We got a couple of tree guys to come out and give bids on proper trimming on our side. On a day when we were out with the arborist I see the neighbor's son coming up the sidewalk. He saw us with the arborist, turned around, left, and I didn't see him again for a week or more

Suffice to say it's been a bit awkward with them, but he's not brought it up again.

what a choad

According to our viewing today they way to get a newer house that doesn’t suck is to buy one that an architect built to live in her/himself. Totally boss and well build house but definitely on the strength end of things price wise.

The other data point from anothe vieing was that I’m not going to buy your house if you have scented candles burning during the viewing.

Karl Malone (the ilxor) RT'ed this one today.

Hell, I’ll take it

“Stronghold” & “citadel” are underused RE descriptors imo

Two things to notice here:

https://i.imgur.com/Bxz8aQm.png

1.) The ladder up against the window and 2.) the Google time stamp of SIX YEARS AGO.

is the place near a freeway? that looks like one of those DOT-installed noise barrier walls

UK ILXORS ONLY should i tip the removal guys?

― lana del boy (ledge), Friday, 6 July 2018 14:17 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i gave them £20 which is like 1.3% lol. one guy did a great job, his young apprentice a bit more lackadaisical. can't wait to do all this again in a few weeks when we move out of storage into the house!

i also helped shift everything into the unit which was probably a more significant contribution.

Sparkle: No, I think it's just the owners "emphasizing a recurring motif."

https://i.imgur.com/75lnwjV.jpg?1

Wow, it really blends into the surroundings at practically Sea Ranch level of architectural consideration

It looks like the entire thing is made out of corrugated cardboard.

My first thought was that someone ran out of money during construction, but the listing says it was built in 1979, so maybe someone ran out of money during renovations.

See, my first thought was that it was from around that time anyway. I grew up in these little towns not much older than I was where the architecture was "bold" and "different" and "difficult to heat" and "prone to mildew".

Not a house, but I was reminded of this edifice, thought to be pretty hip back in 1980, but is now home to the town chiropractor.

https://i.imgur.com/VcGIEGg.jpg

I will never ever understand people who install tiny windows on purpose.

Been waiting three days to exchange, no obstacles except that apparently the two solicitors are unable to talk to each other. I believe this is a common complaint but wtf.

how cautious are you people about damp in old houses? if there's been treatment in the last decade and there are no signs of damp other than meter readings of the walls taken from near floor level, is this a dealbreaker? not sure how much effort to expend placating hypothetical future buyers

just dealt with this very issue as a buyer, it is (in the uk) the buyer's responsibility to get a survey; if that shows up work needing doing then they're within their rights to negotiate the price down by the estimated cost. do you have any guarantees from the treatment?

yeah, my concern is that we will get the treatment done again and still get the same readings, in which case... ???

well we're getting the work done after purchase so anything after that is our (the buyers) problem. getting the seller to do the work before purchase, no idea if that's common or not... maybe we're the suckers here! if you've got guarantees i would've thought that would be a good bargaining chip.

that feeling when you get the keys to your new house and turn up and the old owners haven't moved all their stuff out yet...

ah, this happened to my friends recently, there was a lot of drinking wine in the garden

the seller is doing the work for us, it slowly moves on