Buying a newly renovated house built in 1879 has me really kerfufled. 
1 Like
Hope to see more on this topic! Would be interesting to see how all the modern features of a home such as electrical, plumbing and HVAC have been worked in to such an old building.
1 Like
Worked is a relative term, hacked is probably a better one…
I will say some folks with a lot of coin have done really stellar jobs on that. For us non-independently wealthy it’s much more of kit bash approach.
3 Likes
I have lived in several houses built around 1900, and currently do so.
The electrics are probably the most scary thing. When some dude in 1970 renovated the old house it is not unlikely that stuff from the 1950s is still in there. Weird isolation and so on are normal.
2 Likes
Much depends on how the house was built, kept and upgraded. But as you’d imagine, in Europe it’s quite common to see homes a hundred or more years old.
I have lived in a couple of 1900 era builds including the one I am in now, the oldest house I lived in dated to 16th century and that was crazy, I am glad we never had to do any electrical repairs on that. Also the plumbing was real heath robinson affairs and our water came from a bore hole but it did have its own Bastel house. Next we moved into an Georgian farmhouse that had many quirks too. Including 4 foot thick external walls. It was a very cold house
2 Likes
We have two 18th century houses within our extended family. One takes a lot of maintenance since it is typical wooden construction for the era. It is very solid though. It survived occupation unscathed during both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. The current owner and I had the same grandmother and he stopped in the brewery on Saturday. He is a Citadel grad, a Major in the US Army, and has had 4 rotations to Afghanistan. On his salary, he complains often about the cost of upkeep, and so everyone in the family is extremely thankful and tries to help out when able. We usually celebrate Thanksgiving there with large family reunions, which have been occurring for as long as anyone remembers.
The second has very thick masonry walls. It’s had excellent care over the centuries, including an interior renovation in the mid 2000s. The biggest challenge is getting WiFi to work, since running data cable is out of the question. We eventually used 8 access points to get complete coverage.
3 Likes
Do you guys over there still have 100yr mortgages?
I’ve lived in a home that was build in the 1740’s, quite common around here. And yeah everything was a hackjob. Sometimes when they would renovate walls or rooms they would update everything and make it disappear nicely. Electrical and firecodes still had to be followed and were checked upon, same for the floor isolation against fire’s.
2 Likes
100 year? Wow. I’m hoping like heck my wife and I will be finally rid of ours in another year or two. (Fingers crossed.)
1 Like
From what I remember hearing about this, is that the loan can be passed down with the property from family member to family member. But I may have that completely misunderstood.