I am getting ready to buy my first home. I'm considering both condos and houses, but the houses in my price range were built between 1940 and 1960. I have no home maintenance experience, but I would have the home inspected before I buy it to check for serious problems. Am I in danger of ending up with a "money pit?" Should I play it safe and stick with a condo or should I take a chance and fulfill my lifelong dream of living in a house, instead of an apartment? Any words of advice?

Lousiana Pacific T-111 siding. If you have it, its $16,000 to replace. Lead paint is dangerous to remove but OK to just paint over. Abestos is expensive to remove. Foundation problems are a biggie. Plumbing expensive to upgrade, electrial not as much. New 3 tab roofing not too expensive. Kitchen upgrades can be expensive, Carpeting is cheap. Paint and spackle, new appliances, cheap. Hot water heater, cheap. Plumbing fixtures and electrical fixtures can be bought cheap too. Doors and windows are fairly expensive to replace.

You're correct in having an inspection. A house with many minor items with a fixed cost is better than a house with one major unknown cost (example: foundation on unstable land -- who knows when the cost to resolve it ends!)

Good luck.

PS: condos can have major downsides too. If the exterior siding on the units fail, and this has happened in PDX, the cost to replace the siding on the entire building is borne by the condo owners.

If you're gonna remodel, do the kitchen first, then maybe one bath. Any other remodelling in the house won't return the investment for decades, EXCEPT paint and perhaps carpeting.

I'd make sure you have an excellent home inspector. Don't just find anyone. Get references.

Whether you should buy a newer place vs. and older one may also depend on your budget. Unless an older place has been renovated, you probably do need to think about some budget for more repairs than a newer place.

Condos lately don't seem to be a great investment (at least in Portland) because there's a glut of them right now. There are a zillion apartment conversions as well as new projects. I live next door to a 13-unit project that was poorly conceived and overpriced and after 6 months half the units are still unsold.

I own a townhouse which is sort of a compromise between a house and condo (unlike a condo I own the land and the outside, and I have no one above or below me, just one neighbor attached). I've been happy with a townhouse - I've never been one to want to do much yard work even though I have some to do at this place. It's been a good investment and my neighbors haven't had trouble selling their homes when they need to.

If you buy a condo or townhouse, watch out for the homeowners association - read the CC&Rs carefully and check out their reserves (make sure they have a good reserve so when maintenance comes up it is budgeted for). And understand what your HOA dues actually cover. My HOA dues are really low, but our HOA covers almost nothing (painting, roofing, fence replacement only every so many years).

I'd also check with some of the other owners if you buy a condo or townhouse. Find out how they like it. I did and the people who gave me feedback weren't wrong. Once nice thing about buying a townhouse or condo is that you can easily check comps (comparable sales) to see what others have sold for, without relying on a realtor to do so.

Oh, and whatever you buy, don't be afraid to lowball the seller no matter what the asking price! There are so many homes on the market now that some people really have to sell and will surely accept low offers. Be sure to take advantage of the buyer's market.

Andrew

Siding replacement/mold issues, lawsuits galore with suing the builder (won) and fees and owners now suing each other...even after the settlement, my in-laws still owe $40,000 for (just) repairs at their deluxe (fairly new, very quiet and nice) townhome at de-Forest-ed Heights...No thanks, I'll keep my crappy old NE PDX house. I like having a yard, and not hearing my neighbors flush.

We had a great inspector and we walked through with him, it took 2 hours if I remember correctly, and was well worth it.

I guess I must be lucky - my one neighbor at my townhouse is either extremely quiet or the walls here are super thick, because usually can't tell he's even home let alone hear a toilet flushing over there. I think quality of construction varies.

I agree, though, about walking through with the inspector if you can - you learn a lot about your future house and you can ask any questions you like.

Andrew

Any known defects must be documented in the Property Disclosure. Read it carefully, and be sure to get good answers to any questions you may have. Most financing requires an inspection, and can bring up some good negotiating points. Get the advice of a contractor you trust if any issues arise from the inspection. The presence of lead paint and asbestos must be documented in the Disclosure also.

Make sure there are no pests or dry rot. As Skeptical said, T-111 must be replaced, 9 times out of 10. This will show up in your inspection report.


Yep: condos and their associated fees are a pain, and you only own the inside, meaning the condo association can even dictate the color and type of window coverings you may use, in some cases. If you can live with the association's CC&R's and are satisfied with the process they outline for settling grievances, go for it. Do get all the info about standard fees like grounds and building maintenance, and know that there may be unexpected charges that you cannot put off, like the siding failure.

Good luck!

Lousiana Pacific horizontal (Lap) siding I think is what you are referring to. T-111 is plywood siding and I don't think it had the fungus problem that the horizontal did. Also, 1940's to 60's would probably have electrical problems. All of the outlets will probably be lose (cords wont stay in) and need replaceing. If you ever want to add a hot tub this would probably require a while new power panel to be installed. Plasterboard walls instead of sheetrock would be something else to consider. As said, get a damn good inspector.

Now that you have been properly informed with all the pros and cons here's my advice.

Create a list of things you want. I live in an older home (built between 1926-27). When my wife and I started looking into houses we started to write down the things we wanted. However this was our first home buying experience and so there were many things we didn't know.

Eventually we came up with a list of 15 things we wanted in a house. The house we bought had 14 of the 15.

We did get it inspected and it came through just fine. I had heard to low ball the price and so we did. We go a counter offer and eventually we landed in the middle.

We had the kitchen remodeled in 2000 and we did our own remodel of the bathroom 2 yrs before that.

Older homes can have funky basements but over time we have it made it very livable and in my case it's where I work.

We have done upgrades to some of the electrical, especially in the basement. We had our utility area re-worked for better usage of space. We also looked into eco-friendly options too.

If you got wood floors I’d say show them off and get rid of the carpet.

No matter what you choose there will be maintenance. Take your time and be patient.

And if you get into a mortgage do your best to get it paid off quickly. The idea of a 30 yr mortgage is old school thinking. You can be very creative these days with the rates. Also check out credit unions for your loans, typically you'll get better customer service and rates.

And very very careful with ARM's and Stay away from the interest only ones.

With rates and the economy as volatile as it is right now I wouldn't even consider an adjustable rate mortgage.

IMHO.

Key there is known defects, sometims its to an owners benefit to not do a close inspection, so they don't have to disclose it.

My experience, as long as the foundation is ok, and no obvious mold, or structural damage, I can pretty much fix anything else myself.

My first home was built in 1947 - great materials and workmanship. I highly recommend houses built late '40s through the mid '60s, that's when the best lumber was coming out of the NW forests and the craftsmen were many and well-skilled.

My current home built in 1971 has good materials but poorer workmanship.

For any home you look at, good inspections are essential. ans has been stated before, maintenance is part of home ownership. Even a new house needs some.

(We got some rough numbers on our kitchen remodel plans - about $80K-100K for what we were hoping to do. NOT even close to our budget. We're now redesigning from scratch, much smaller project. But it is also a much more doable project, and I can do much of the work myself.)

T-111 comes in several "varieties" of which straight plywood is one of them. Plywood is the best kind and not a problem. Its the older LP OSB (random oriented small strips of wood glued together) style that causes the most problems.

Here's something from a home repair site:

"T111 (T-111) is a siding style. It just means a sheet of siding with groves cut into it (usually 4" or 8" on center - 4"o.c., 8"o.c.). There's LP (Louisiana-Pacific, SmartSide), Cedar, Fiber Cement (HardiePanel, WeatherBoards) and others. LP T111 is the most common and it is an exterior grade OSB sheeting with a notoriously poor reputation."

The more I live in my 1927 home the more I love it. This thing is a tank when it comes to construction.

I, like you Sparklewave, am not gifted with my hands when it comes to making repairs. However over the years through necessity, I have learned. My wife is far more the do-it-yourselfer in our house.

My mom gave my wife and I a wonderful 13th wedding anniversary gift (some 6 years ago now). She knew how much we loved this house and she found out that you could do a history check of older homes.

What we got from my mom was not only the history of our home but the homebuilder's name, the names and pictures of the people we bought the home from (only one previous owner before us) and lots of other cool stuff.

A book my wife is reading right now is called “Natural Remodeling-for the Not-So-Green House” By Carol Venolia and Kelly Lerner. They feature homes from all parts of the US including Portland and give practical solutions.

Also when buying a home try and visualize each room and how you will use it. Today so many American’s are living in bigger houses but only “living” in a couple of rooms. The extra rooms or space are cluttered with stuff and it just seems to accumulate.

I will re-iterate the importance of doing a thorough inspection of the house. From my experience with the 1951 house that I own, I would recommend paying attention to these issues:

1) Even though you may have insulation in the attic, the walls might not have insulation.
2) The roof may be in need of servicing.
3) There might be dryrot under the floors due to improper drainage of rainwater
4) Because grounding circuits were not required in residential construction until the 1960s, the wiring and circuit breaker box/fuse box might not support grounding.
5) Your water heater might burst a few years after you move in.
6) Some parts of the home may contain asbestos.
7) The plumbing will likely be galvanized iron, which can clog and requires special coupling fittings to connect it to water heaters, fixtures, etc.

Overall, however, I think that the build quality of these older homes is better than the new developments that are going up today. What kind of shape will those newer homes be in 50 years from now?

Here is an addendum to point #4 in my post above: The electricians of the 1950s did not anticipate that much electricity would be used by 120V residential appliances. Thus, the bathroom, living room, and bedrooms will be serviced by a few low-amperage circuits. In the case of my house, two 15 Amp circuits service three bedrooms, two bathrooms, the living room, the refrigerator, and the light/120V outlet in the laundry room!

My assumption is that in the typical 1950s home, bedroom appliances might have consisted of lamps, a clock radio, and possibly a record player. If there was a TV in the house, it would have been in the living room. The only likely bathroom appliances would have been shavers and curling irons.

And after years of use the sockets will become loose and need replacing. Look at the outlets for discoloration. When they get warn out the prongs quit making direct contact the electricity will arc to the plug (not good) and leave discoloration on the outlets. Easy to change and relatively cheap for the DIY but can be spendy when done by a contract electrician.

Also, as said, without grounding there can be no GFI outlets in the bathrooms, so don't shower with your hair dryer!

Good stuff Alfredo

We have made many changes over the years to improve the insulation, electrical, and pipes.

We had a new composition roof put on before we moved in...our next roof will be more eco-friendly.

Next water heater will be a tankless one.

We have never dealt with dryrot. Having a basement is a good thing.

All of the issues that I listed were ones that I have run across with my house. The only one that was really unexpected was the roof leaking. This is what happened during the inspection: We couldn't figure out how to turn on the attic lights. The inspector thus looked briefly at the inside of the roof, using a flashlight. He didn't spot any problems.

Once I moved into the house and started cleaning up the attic, I noted some water damage to some of the items in the attic and to the plywood "floor" of the attic. The underside of the roof looked OK, so I figured that the leak had been fixed years ago. When the first rainstorm came, I realized that the leak had not been fixed. Later, when I called some roofing contractors to get bids, it was pointed out to me that there was another spot on the roof that was rotten and would need to be replaced. According to the contractor that replaced my roof, the previous roofing job had simply placed a second layer of shingles on the roof, using nails that were not long enough to do the job. This caused the second layer of shingles to buckle in some places, creating pockets where rain water could wick in under windy conditions.

While you didn't specify the type of original roofing, (I'm thinking its wood shingles), it is okay to put a second layer of 3 tab composition shingles on top of the original layer, but not a third. I'm thinking perhaps your inspector didn't do quite a good job inspecting the roof.

Thanks, everybody!

Sparklewave I expect you to find the house of your dreams after all the information you got on this thread.

Keep us posted on what happens.