Here’s the situation: My wife and I have been in the market for a home for about a year now. We currently rent a 50-plus year-old home with its fair share of problems and quirks. But hey, it’s only $400/month for three bedrooms and one teensy bathroom.

Last night, my father-in-law called saying he knew a guy selling a house down the road from our rent house. It was built in 1960, but the man selling it bought it last year and did a massive remodel. You can’t tell it’s the same house, honestly. He put in lots of work– we know, because we’ve driven by the place visiting family in the area regularly. Plus, our families know the owner/remodeler pretty well..

The home’s three bedrooms, two baths. Lots of character, including the refurbished original wood floors and tongue-in-groove ceilings in the living room and kitchen.

Cons:

1. The kitchen is smaller than our rent house, and much like our rent house, there’s no outlet for an exhaust hood over the range, which must be a standalone range/oven combo (because it’s not surrounded by cabinets to the left and right). I don’t want to drill into the beautiful ceiling if we get this place. Any ideas for a solution?

2. Original basement floors have been coated over in thick epoxy, but I can see some lumpiness near the concrete block support columns. I see no other evidence of significant foundation settling (no significant cracks in drywall, no cracks in the mortar joints of the basement’s block walls), so should I be concerned?

3. Not sure if the house was properly insulated. Want to know if there’s insulation in the exterior walls, but there’s no good way of knowing for sure– and if it’s there, not sure how well it’s holding up after 50 years. Does anyone have any idea how much blown-in wall insulation costs, just in case?

4. Central heat and air, while newly installed, looks like an older salvaged unit. The ducts underneath the house are fantastic, however. What would a new heat and air unit cost if this one turns out to be as old and inefficient as it looks?

5. Lacking closet space. Has anyone done any major decluttering when moving into an older home? I know people back then didn’t have the amount of STUFF we have now. In our current rent house (similar amount of closet space), we use all three bedroom closets just for our own belongings. I definitely want to pare that down to one closet. Any tips?

Pros:

1. Much higher workmanship quality than many newer houses we’ve looked at. The original builder/owner was a carpenter by trade. Very strong stuff.

2. Upstairs washer/dryer– a big improvement over our rent house’s basement laundry location.

3. Freshly painted, sheetrock walls and newly-stained crown molding, baseboards and trim work.

4. Better quality electric wiring and definitely better plumbing than most houses, even some much newer than this one, we’ve looked at. Completely new PVC piping, including the main septic exit pipe in the basement.

5. New windows and exterior doors– unlike our rent house, I couldn’t feel the cold wintry air coming in through these, nor was traffic noise as bad.

Neutral facts (things that are sorta good, sorta bad):

1. We’d be within a mile of several of our family members, both hers and mine. You can imagine how that might be both good and bad.

2. Would add about 10 miles per day to my wife’s commute– mine would stay roughly the same. We’d also have to drive further to get groceries, etc. More gasoline spending, but we like living in the country, so it’s a toss-up.

3. Asking price is more than some newer homes in our county ($110,000.) Some newer homes of similar size can be had for the same amount, but many are in subdivisions (this one isn’t). We think we could probably offer $90,000 and get the house. On a 30 year mortgage, our monthly house payment would be at least $200 more per month than our rent after taking taxes and insurance into account. Easily within our monthly budget ability, (we’ve been saving $1,000 per month after paying rent, groceries, etc. as we built up our down payment savings). Spending more on housing each month vs. building personal equity?

4. The land: As my parents say, “They’re not making any more land nowadays,” but it’s also more to pay taxes on and to take care of.

5. No garage area. I do a fair amount of automotive maintenance at home, so this is something I like having. However, this means that all of our basement space is usable for storage. Our rent house has a drive-under basement, which means we have to keep about half of it unused so we have space to pull in one of the vehicles for servicing.

So, if you read all of that– would you buy? Why or why not?

Asked by:Banger