I bought my house in 2002. Forced air gas furnace was installed in 1946. I did replace the basic blower motor at one point, then replaced the whole thing so I could add central air.

My double oven range is from 1949. Still kicking.

Every time you fart an alarm must sound somewhere.

Come on now. They didn't start anything. They just rode Reagan's shitwave.

You think Americans getting screwed started with the first Bush administration?

The first Bush admin did one thing right, not on their own, but still one thing. Signed the tax increases that played a big part in him losing the 92 election. Those tax increases along with the careful budget work in the 90's paved the way to an actual budget surplus. Which we have repeatedly nuked with more and more tax cuts for the wealthy. That budget work was also time consuming and careful unlike whatever nonsense Trump/Musk tried at the start of this year.

The useless war the second one started ended up costing us 2 TRILLION dollars. That is enough to buy 5 MILLION starter homes for us. Think about that. We could have built 5 MILLION homes for Americans but instead we just blew it up in the desert.

Same here. We kept the green tile and just updated the sink, medicine cabinet and toilet. Those were all non-original and the bathroom looks very current now.

https://preview.redd.it/w7kcokpvw27g1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=68ef7c46fd2640fff620427448d006d551f00b57

Carter is pretty young for a boiler. I lived in a place where the radiators were stamped in the 20s.

We saw a gas fired water heater from 1953 and get this; it’s a RENTAL unit from the gas company. They’ve been paying 6$ a month for 70 years. I googled it and examples are in museums

I'm team condo too! We have a really good management company that if there's something that's an issue, but my responsibility, they'll arrange for the work to get done and I just have to pay for it. We have agreements with various companies for things, so I don't have to worry about who is going to come do the work because they've already been vetted. It's great!

How do you renovate a crawlspace into a living space? Did you dig down several more feet?

Doing that kind of thing properly costs tons of money in permits and in my area would likely be denied by the county. Property taxes also skyrocket once we do any repairs or improvements. A lot of people also can’t do the work themselves. It’s great it worked too for you but it’s also hard for the people who now have to buy your same house for $700,000 instead of that being their starter home that’s the out of reach home they can never afford.

Did this with a condo in Miami, not the jump you had but it got me my current home. We fixed it up and lived in it for 4 years and then sold it to a retiring couple looking to downsize that was happy for a place that was renovated and cared for.

Yeah we went with a townhouse too in Seattle. Literally all of the single family homes we toured in our budget had floor warping measured in inches, no parking, deathtrap uneven stairs, basements with five-foot ceilings, old roofs. One literally had an open pipe sticking up into the living room. And our real estate agent told us they would all get bid up over $1 million basically. Total scam. We went with a townhouse and have no regrets.

I bought a new construction townhome 2 yrs ago and locked into a decently low rate at the time that they offered as an incentive. 2 Year cosmetic warrantiy and 10 year structural. Any issues and I just submit a ticket.

I paid $100k more than my sister paid for her 100 year old ranch style home. But between the interest rate and the money she had to pump into the home for repairs, we both basically gonna be paying the same amount at the end of our mortages. And I have way less stress and a modern home.

I love my townhome. I will die a happy man if I never have to cut grass ever again.

townhouses might be the only actual starter homes left

I lucked out with my starter - it's a condo. It's old, it needs work, and it is costing assessments, which people always shit on condos for, but our assessments are infrastructure repairs and upgrades we're doing that have cut our monthly expenses significantly. I'm in a rare community where my monthly HOA fee literally covers everything - water, electricity, gas, cable, internet, pool maintenance, landscaping, all of it, and we have a maintenance company that I can call for any issue, even if it's something that's my responsibility - they'll set up the work for me and I just pay for it. I realized after being here that I would have probably failed miserably if I started with a house. I need the 'call someone for problems' part of being a renter, but without the $3000 rent. My mortgage and regime fees together are $1955.

Yes this was my experience. SFH starter homes were trash. Knockdowns. But the townhouses were a lot better. The only way I could see us getting into a quality of life we were ok with was in a townhouse. Once I accepted that things got easier. 

The only problem with townhomes is the lack of parking and, depending on build quality, thin walls. My starter home was a townhouse and I honestly loved it, except for the lack of guest parking. Walls were fine. I also had a hugely problematic HOA but that’s not a problem necessarily specific to townhomes. If you find a townhome you like, go for it! But do ask around about noise from neighbors, guest parking, and the HOA if there is one.

I agree completely. I lived in a townhome and now we live in a duplex and its been alright. Townhouse was actually really awesome. The duplex is alright But like you said, I still had the joys of updating the 20 year old AC, furnace, and water heater. Replaced 2 toilets and the washer and dryer too. Getting the broken dishwasher replaced this month. And the previous owner sold the house for double they bought it for! When its in such a ruined state.

You do realize that in a town house you still pay for any issues with the roof or foundation. Usually it’s paid for through an HOA and HOA fees.

While if you have a well run HOA, monthly fees are enough to build up savings to pay for any large maintenance issues. But if you don’t have a well run one, you just get hit with special assessments to cover a new roof or foundation issues.

So you haven’t really escaped the liability with a townhouse.

My first (and probably only) home is a 40+ year old townhouse. I chose location over space. Any reasonably priced single family house has been bought for the land and an even bigger new house has been built on it.

I actually like my no frills HOA. It's somewhere in the middle. Not too strict that they're measuring the height of my grass, but still looking for the big things like requiring permission to build additions or making sure the entire development looks OK.

Condo HOAs are a bigger risk IMO. I would heavily scrutinize everything like how much they have in reserves, etc.

Rough, neglected and also small. Under 900 sq ft for a family of four. Most people want more room these days.

that's the crux of the issue here. Starter homes used to be cheap to make up for all the work you had to do on it. That's no longer the case anymore unfortunately

Yeah that dudes leaving out that it was $115k in 1992 and minimum wage was only like $2 less per hour

This is the trade off right? I bought a home originally built 1942. It’s a hodgepodge of questionable landlord specials and some solid repairs. Since buying in 2021 have to make many repairs myself or pay contractors, but the price we paid was half that of a new home.

While I’ve spent a lot of money make repairs, the equity growth has way outpaced that. My only regret is honesty not buying sooner. New homes require maintenance as well.

If I waited to buy something new, with the pace of growth in my area I’d be retiring before I could reasonably afford a home.

Honestly (in Florida anyways) it’s the taxes and insurance that gets ya. Half my monthly mortgage payment is literally just taxes and insurance…

Unfortunately that isn’t the case today. Starter homes are more expensive monthly than most existing mortgages on much nicer houses, and there doesn’t seem to be a discount given for fixer uppers vs flipped entry level homes. Best value today is new build with a local, trusted contractor and their incentive rate.

Or you used to be able to get a house with deferred maintenance and major repairs needed in a good neighborhood. “The ugliest house in a great neighborhood” used to be the goal for an affordable starter home. But now… I make good money and affordable for me isn’t just major repairs needed, it’s also not the best neighborhood. Those two things were both nonnegotiable for me to get a house in my city. Luckily I’ve been a single mom raising two kids alone for a decade so I am not afraid of a “bad” neighborhood. But the goal has changed - “The ugliest house in an iffy neighborhood” was still at the top of what I could afford. 

Ooof, your poor dad.

Your grandfather with every headshake ”I have raised an idiot”.

This!! It’s not some generational conspiracy

While I agree with this,it would then follow that they need to be sold at a lower price point. The whole problem here is that the older children (adults in their 50s or 60s) want to sell it as if it were kept up with. If the money isn't put into the house, then why should they receive the money back out of the house just because it's a house? We went to one and i could immediately hear water like pouring. I went into the kitchen and boiler was just pissing water. We told the sellers and they just crammed dishtowels up there and said it had never happened before. They gave us a story about how their mum lived their all her life and she was just a little old lady so had never done anything to it. 75 years and everything needed done. They were still asking top penny and just invited the people behind us in, with no mention of the boiler. Our times overlapped so I told them.

Unless you are some crazy socialite who has to wow your guests, spending money on "improvements" you don't care about personally is stupid. I can look at my kitchen and think. New cabinets would look nice, but do I want to put off retirement another 3 months to have them? fuck no

The only reason to do a lot of updates are just social pressure created so people can sell you more shit you don't need. Just like the fashion industry getting people to spend $1000's on clothing that goes out of style in 3 months when you can go thrift store and get just as nice clothes for $10's

And if the Boomers did have taste and renovated their home, people would instead be complaining about how expensive the home is….lol. 

Oh god,  North Jersey. And central. Tons of old crappy houses. 

And some sellers will avoid selling to someone with an FHA loan.

My company specializes in 203k loans. It’s hard because we have to front all the costs until we get a draw but on the flip side, it really limits the competition and there’s no risk of not being paid once work is completed.

My wife bought our "starter home" at what we now see as a very fortunate time, early 2019. 211k. She purchased it herself, I moved in a few years ago. It's a typical 1954 rambler. Detatched 2 car garage. Last owner lived in it for over 20 years. Her first renovations were replacing the wood paneling in entryway vestibule side entrance with drywall and tile. She bought a ton of extra tile since it was on clearance and she wanted to replace the kitchen flooring with it eventually. Replaced the basement carpet, and her dad helped her finish a section of the basement which had been a workshop, which is now "my" bedroom, adding in an egress window. Unfortunately right after she bought it she learned of a major plumbing problem, as our sewer main from the house to the street was broken. It was a 20-40k cost to replace it. No one's fault, it was just time for it to go.

Since then, together we've completely renovated the kitchen with new cabinets, extending a wall, new appliances (except for the old fridge that she's fixed twice now), heated floor, used all those tiles she wisely saved, tile backsplash... Upgraded our electrical panel in the process of that. New roof and siding, new furnace/ac, added a portico on the front so the house looks like less of a shoebox. We redid the ceiling in the basement to add more light and discovered our old galvanized plumbing when trying to hide some pipes that had been boxed over and I hit my head on all the time. I ended up replumbing almost 70% of our house on a time crunch before the ceiling guys came in. Redid the basement staircase and part of the basement floor with nice engineered hardwood. I literally just finished the new baseboards like 30 minutes ago. Put in more cabinetry and counter space down there for storage/crafting space. Next up I'll mount the TV to the wall and then we will get to the fun decorating bit.

This year we're replacing all the basement windows, as well as the upstairs windows. And at that point, we agree all the "less sexy but important stuff" will be done. We'll renovate the bathrooms, and eventually she wants to vault the living room ceiling to make it feel like less of a shoebox and give us more light.

Along the way she refinanced twice and now we're 4 years into a 15 year mortgage at 2.3%. Our city is going through some major expansions and planning to revitalize the main road near us with a light rail extension. We're excited, but also a bit nervous about what those changes might bring. Traffic is already kind of a mess, but we're trying to get more involved with our city and attending city planning meetings and such. The house is generally in the area she wanted, and what she could afford at the time. Not perfect, but we keep telling ourselves that having a paid off house is worth a lot in terms of freedom and financial stability down the line. We're making it as nice as we can for our needs. Similar houses in our area are all selling for 300k easily, and haven't been substantially updated compared to ours.

We're not having children, so it's a good size for us. While there are many homes or places we'd prefer to live, we're another one of those people in our age demographic that basically plan to die in our "starter home". If we do ever sell, it will feel nice to know this house is well set to be a good home for the next owner for decades. A good amount of our neighbors have lived here for decades, and our Mexican neighbors both are always updating their homes near us. They're awesome. Our block is slowly getting a facelift. We're constantly getting compliments when our neighbors see us outside working on our landscaping projects. We've also planted 8 trees.

All this to say, I think you're right. A lot of these homes need updating, but it sucks to think about being someone in your late 20s-early 30s paying 300k+ at 6% for a very modest rambler and then sink as much money as we have into it. And we've done so much of this work ourselves! For just the kitchen minus the electrical we probably paid about 23k. It took a long time and was a lot of work and was really stressful. One day while tiling we were about to throw in the towel and her dad said to take a break and just look up how much it would cost to have a pro do it and it was almost 3x the cost. We probably saved 20k minimum on our kitchen alone. I know I saved about 9k doing the plumbing when I asked my plumber buddy how much he'd quote for that project. And my god, the amount of janky work I've uncovered ripping this place apart... Even still I feel lucky knowing it could be so much worse. I try my best to not be passing along some bullshit work for the next person to deal with.

The market needs correcting, or people need to make more money, or something. We've been so fortunate in many ways, and we have solid careers, but I wince at the thought of buying this house at today's prices and rates and trying to finance everything we've done to it to bring it up to date. When we replaced the AC the installers took a picture of it because it was the oldest one they'd seen still working in quite some time.

anecdotally from observing my friends/community - a lotttt of people in their late 20s and early 30s have built debt holes impossible to escape due to FOMO

/ mobility is one of the last bargaining chips workers have. I've had to move states to stay employed and have low confidence that I'll be able to stay in one place for 15 years. The breakeven point where buying becomes cheaper than renting is now about 10-15+ years depending on prices and rents, so it can be a rational decision amid economic uncertainty.

That's such a weird concept to me. I'll die in this shitty little 1500 sq ft house before I pay a realtor to sell my house, repay all that upfront interest in a new home, and pay to move all my stuff.

Mine is the same. Wife and I are actively looking at buying. Even had to go way out of suburbs and increase travel daily for cheaper options.

At the end of the day, the house for sale across the street is $1,200/month more than our rent. No thanks.

Which areas of the country have rents 2/3 the cost of mortgages?

AI has become so common that I'm worried people are getting worse at recognizing it. Sure the premise of the post is fair, but the AI-isms make me want the minutes I spent reading it back 

wait until they buy a cheap DR Horton home that's "new" and got built in like a month and will have roofing issues within the first couple of years.

Yeah, this is just called "owning a home"

Like, assuming you're going to live in this house for 10+ years, there's a decent chance you'll need to replace some of this stuff once anyways. Maybe even twice if you live there long enough. And in that time, the costs will only go up.

It's frustrating to have it up front, but home maintenance is just generally frustrating. And if you make those updates and sell while they're still in prime condition that'll factor into additional equity for the home.

The bigger issue is that a starter home should t be $450k

You mean the ones with the stryofoam outer walls that you can shoot a nail though?!

I will take my 70s ranch with solid block and brick construction any day. Gimme that used starter home!

I've owned three brand new homes. I'm in the current one for the last 10 years. Have never had one problem. I've definitely had neighbors with issues, but they are still like .005% of the neighborhood. Just don't buy D.R. Horton or another similar builder and you'll still likely be better off. Especially on things like flooring, HVAC and roof repairs, which are the biggies.

I follow that inspector on instagram who does the tappy little hand, pointing out problems with new builds, and it's appalling. I work in custom home design and costs are insane, but I see why. You get what you pay for, with a good builder. Sometimes.

ironically the better ones are often the ones that need remodel but maybe outdated at best not poorly kept. the upper middle class italian style ones were built decent even if they look like Olive Garden.

This is what we ended up getting. We had to replace the water heater and repair the hvac, and update some outlets and do spme minor repairs first thing, but the rest, while not ideal, will be fixed up as we can and its livable.

Not asking for perfect nor fully updated, but for fucks sake why are necessary items, like the stove, broken but being sold like its a treasure of the house.

Ah HOA buying a home while still having to answer to other people like you are a renter F that

Yes, and old people on a fixed income should completely declutter their homes, bring everything up to code, hire an interior decorator to pick out the perfect fixtures and paint colors and floor coverins so they can conveniently die in order for some stranger to get the house for cheap.

God forbid they turn into the rural and suburban "nobodies" they love to roast on the internet