Older Houses

[Masaba]

I have been looking for a house in the $450K range in the "close-in" neighborhoods of Seattle. What I have found is that most of the houses in this range are either townhomes, which I won't consider, and single family homes that were built in the 1920s - 1960s.

Considering that all of these homes are very old, does anyone have any idea of what kind of maintenance costs I am going to be looking at? Also, what should I expect out of the sellers as well as far as the inspection items go? Many of these houses seem to me to have at least some sign of water in the basement (at least a bit of a mildew smell), low ceilings, old plumbing, old electrical wiring, some signs of rot and decay in either the wood or the brick, sewer issues, and other extremely visible signs of wear and tear. My personal opinion is that the sellers should get most of this kind of thing fixed before they sell the house, or give significant cuts in price if they expect the new buyer to deal with it.

Does anyone else have any advice on dealing with the negotiations during the inspection phase of a purchase and sale on these old Seattle homes?

[ira s]

Most sellers don't want to fix anything, and feel that they have priced their homes appropriately so that they won't be willing to fix much or agree to a reduced cost after the inspection...But it's a tradeoff. I like older homes, they have a lot more personality and were often built with better materials and craftsmanship....Foundations and roofs should be especially looked at, but replacing plumbing and electrical, while time consuming and a pain, is not extremely expensive.

[redmondjp]

I have a friend with a 1940s house in the Greenwood neighborhood, single-story on a full basement. Since buying it, he has:

- replaced the entire water supply system (galvanized out, copper in)
- replaced most of the interior drain lines (galvanized/cast iron out, ABS in)
- had earthquake-proofing done professionally (they did an excellent job IMO but it was $$$)
- trenched the interior perimeter of the basement and added drainpipe, along with two sumps and pumps to control runoff intrusion
- replaced the original furnace (oil out, natural gas in, leaking oil tank removed from the yard for $$$)
- upgraded the electrical service from a 100A to a 200A panel and replaced much of the interior wiring
- replaced the roof (asphalt/asphalt)

This is just a short list of the necessary maintenance items that he has had to do to upgrade the property since purchasing it. Now, he is looking at a replacement sewer line out to the steet (concrete sectioned pipe). Has gotten bids of $60K to replace and $30K to reline. Ouch!!!

This is all in addition to the $150-200K (guesstimate, he wouldn't tell me) remodel/upgrade that he just did to finish the basement (adding a bath, study, and two bedrooms), total remodel of the kitchen/dining area, only a partial bathroom remodel, and adding a new front porch and walkway.

It's a real eye-opener as to how much time and money he has spent on the place. Probably has invested $250K - $300K additional since buying the house.

If you are looking at a place that is going to need significant work and you are not planning on doing it yourself, I'd really suggest getting some bids on what needs to be done just so you have some idea of what your future cash outlays might be. I'm completely floored that they could ask $60K just to dig up a pipe and put in a new one--a job that they should easily be able to complete in two days or less, including street repair (not on a busy street either).

[garth]

There are some good things too, old growth beams are often found in older houses which are much more resistant to rot and bugs and things have settled / water has flowed through the property over the years.

Pretty much every basement in Seattle has been flooded in the last 3 years or so, if you are going to use it as living space I would plan to install a sump pump.

When we bought our house the sewer line passed an inspection fine (I even got a dvd of the inside all the way to the street) but the purchase also included an easement with the neighbor to run electrical across our driveway and replace our sewer line and driveway when the work was done, when the driveway came up he took a look at the outside of our sewer line (concrete) and found that in a couple of places it had been almost completely destroyed by a maple tree and the sewage was just flowing through the roots of the tree I watched the dvd again and could not identify these areas as looking different from the inside.