patrick.net

What I don’t get is - nobody seems very interested in talking about the housing market anymore. There is a miscellaneous forum here that doesn’t get nearly as much traffic as the housing forum, yet as soon as a housing forum thread gets off track, you guys go nuts with the off-topic posts. Why does everyone hang out here if they want to talk about engineering or programming or whatever?

I guess because, like any subject, the subject of housing is finite.

Again, apologies to all for the long off-topic posts.

In short, I’ll take the bungalow built in the thirties, and you can have my share of the Garage Mahals.
I think we all can probably agree that Bubblenomics produced some homes of dubious quality (issues arising from quality of materials and 'underskilled' labor). FWIW, you're probably not going to live in a 30's bungalow without some significant upgrades. See Debunking the Myth of Old Homes and Good Bones for more details.

EBGuy says

In short, I’ll take the bungalow built in the thirties, and you can have my share of the Garage Mahals.
I think we all can probably agree that Bubblenomics produced some homes of dubious quality (issues arising from quality of materials and ‘underskilled’ labor). FWIW, you’re probably not going to live in a 30’s bungalow without some significant upgrades. See Debunking the Myth of Old Homes and Good Bones for more details.

Great little article. "So I suggest a new version of an old ditty: Good Bones, Good Heat, Good Pipes, That’s Sweet." I couldn't agree more. I had a late 1800's folk victorian / craftsman and the big work was plumbing and wiring. The foundation had been re-done in the 70's; all the houses in the n'hood had this done since they had been built with sandstone bricks that were literally turning to sand (this is back east).

I would add - the plumbing was EASY since the house was on a foundation and had ample crawl space (dirty, but ample). I had all new water service run in CPVC and it was something like $1500 for the whole house. The low pressure (sewer) was mostly fine - it was cast iron and will be there when humanoid cockroaches own the place. The sewer lateral was clay, however, and I learned about that the hard way ...

Wiring? Well, this place had a mix of added on wiring - some of the oldest copper was as thick as my little finger. I talked to a pretty knoweldgeable guy on the disastrous experiment with aluminum wiring in CA in the 50s or so. He said that has all either been replaced or the house is burned down. Seriously, it is replaced or burned down.

And I also agree with the author on this: the details and other 'craftsman' work on older houses is usually preferable - with notable exceptions of houses they might call 'custom' in more recent years - i.e. not cookie cutter aseembly-line jobs but houses built one by one individually. My parents had modest means and we lived in beautiful homes on MI built this way. I think the builder barely turned a profit, but it was a labor of love for him.