Bad idea to buy an old house?

[gallahadesquire]

It’s craftsman and it’s gorgeous. I just wish it weren’t in California

[Rudynate]

Two words for your: "Home Inspection" everything else appears to be workable. But you'll need to know if there is any rot, termites etc

 

It's apparent that it's been well maintained, lovingly restored/upgraded.

 

 

And in inspection generally only costs a few hundred dollars. Great investment.

[Rudynate]

My house was built in 1931. It's in great condition.

[+ deej]

It’s craftsman and it’s gorgeous. I just wish it weren’t in California

If I were in CA and looking I’d consider it. As you say it’s gorgeous and in a decent location. It has that apartment over the garage which adds rental income to offset the mortgage payment. (And who wouldn’t want some hunky young actor wannabe waiting for his big break hanging around?)

 

Make sure any inspection includes compliance/upgrades to current building codes, specifically earthquake resilience.

[+ Charlie]

The earthquake retrofit is an issue I would be concerned about, no matter how great it looks.

[+ deej]

Particularly since retrofits are not mandatory in existing structures.

[body2body]

"Is it nutty to buy a house built in 1910?" In my opinion, I would say it depends. Is it nutty to buy that house built in 1910? ...I tend not to get caught up in the fluff. I care about the guts of the house. It's location in general and it's location within the neighborhood. Home inspectors routinely miss critical flaws. From what I see, there's far too many negatives with the property, so there isn't anyway I'd drop almost 2 mil for that house, unless you could knock it down and build units.

Back in the 1980s I bought a small apartment building in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. The building was constructed in 1922. I had the building inspected by a reliable inspector with a good reputation. I also had a termite inspection done, and because of the buildings age, got the seller to agree to have the building tented an fumigated. A couple of years later I had an exterior wooden stairway replaced and the contractor opened the stucco wall. The studs looked like Swiss Cheese. It was old termite damage, there was no recent activity, and neither the building inspector, nor the termite inspector could have seen it without removing the stucco. It cost me thousands to fix the problem. When you buy an older property there can be issues that no inspector can see.

[body2body]

The House in question predates the existance of West Hollywood. It dates from when the town was an exurb of Los Angeles built by Moses Sherman to house workers for his Pasadena-Pacific Railway in 1896. Here is an article from one of our local Public TV stations KCET-

https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/how-the-town-of-sherman-became-the-city-of-west-hollywood

[bigvalboy]

The earthquake retrofit is an issue I would be concerned about, no matter how great it looks.

 

And earthquake damage is cumulative. Unless it has been shear walled and brought to current codes in regards to strapping walls to the foundation and to the roof, it could be a nightmare. I still say it is a tear down.

[Guest]

Here's a house for the same price that might be safer...

https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/96050_rid/3-_beds/0_singlestory/featured_sort/34.119693,-118.364125,34.067851,-118.399322_rect/X1-SS-18j30dg7u8yr9_4zss3_sse/20797378_zpid/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=emo-weekendshopper-oh-forsaleaddress&rtoken=291a2e8b-0c72-4b6e-bd8d-e73eb65b66bf~X1-ZU106c8zzvfxeyx_8l13l&3col=true