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There’s been huge progress. What kind of house could the average person in the US have afforded in 1920 vs today? With amenities like today?
Average house size in 1920 was 1048 sq ft. Today? Around 2.5x bigger.
There has been huge progress in technology and amenitites, but with that comes regulation as well. Back in the day if you wanted to add a garage, you could do so without intervention.
Now? You have to do things carefully and in the most secret way possible to not alert the town at whatever you are changing. They quoted me for a 700 dollar permit in addition to architect fees for turning garage into living area.
Can you imagine paying someone to tell you what to do. Biggest joke. They tried to "ask for permission" to enter 3 times so far. - ha no. In terms of this, we've gone backwards 100 years since 1900. Welcome to 1800. While I have about 300 sqft more of untaxed living space, the hell you have to go through to make it happen without someone having on opinion - is baffling.
You know what the issue with new home construction is here?... The reason people like myself prefer old homes is that their tax wont shoot through the sky if you redo everything.
Think about this. You buy a house here for ~350k and redo everything. I'm talking moving walls, opening up the kitchen and dining room/living room. Digging from 7ft to 9ft, pouring new cement and insulating exterior basement walls from exterior to prevent water issues from neighboring wet soil.
Changing water pipes, removing the useless baseboard and putting in radiators, wether it be new alimunm or old cast iron. Extending the roof 4 ft each side as they do in other countries so the water doesnt leak into the windows.
Ripping out Andersen windows and putting German engineered windows (not imported, made in America by the way...).
Replacing all of the pink r15 insulation with rockwool to avoid mold problems, adding 6 inches to interior/exterior wall so the wall isnt half a foot thick.
Ripping out the garbage pergo laminate flooring from home depot and putting solid wood $10/sqft + so you are stepping on something natural and not some plastic crap let alone stinky carpets.
All of the above, you'd have to pay 1m for in a new house construction. You can do the same for free if you do it yourself as many of us do. The only issue - finding something that isnt 2 story 1000 sqft. New construction people do it as hotkarl said - lipstick on pig. A real company would charge much more than 1m for this, something that would cost you only 100k in materials and about 5 years in part time labor - and at this point, you'd be doing the work for a home you'd live in for a generation or two.
You would spend more than 100k for that. Who wants to spend 5 years renovating a house. Even if you did all that. Your utility would still be more than mine in a new house. My crib is 72/75 all day and I got 3xxx sq ft and a sub $100 gas bill in the winter maybe $115 if it’s a freak month. You can never match the efficiency of a new house. I’ve lived in 5 homes the newer have been the best. You can 100% build a house her for well under 1m. In my area guy bought a subdivided 90x100 lot for 200k a few years back. I became friendly he spent 705k to build a sweet house. He used a GC for part of the job and had a permit expediter.
No one digs out a basement. Once again new homes are way safer, egress windows hardwired smoke/co, direct venting heating units. Hurricane proof, water resistant osb plywood.
You would spend more than 100k for that. Who wants to spend 5 years renovating a house. Even if you did all that. Your utility would still be more than mine in a new house. My crib is 72/75 all day and I got 3xxx sq ft and a sub $100 gas bill in the winter maybe $115 if it’s a freak month. You can never match the efficiency of a new house. I’ve lived in 5 homes the newer have been the best. You can 100% build a house her for well under 1m. In my area guy bought a subdivided 90x100 lot for 200k a few years back. I became friendly he spent 705k to build a sweet house. He used a GC for part of the job and had a permit expediter.
No one digs out a basement. Once again new homes are way safer, egress windows hardwired smoke/co, direct venting heating units. Hurricane proof, water resistant osb plywood.
Ask me how I know everyone I know digs out a basement. No one wants 7 ft ceilings. There are digging tools that make life hell of a lot easier.
Newer homes are definately not better. Older homes are better and the newer ones, as hotkarl puts it, lipstick on pig.
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