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I wish most peopled thought about this stuff when buying houses, but they don’t. We’ve had our house on the market since July, and have had a couple dozen tours without a single offer. All the criticisms are that they all expect it to be completely updated at the price point. But they don’t recognize that the house is built like a tank and has all the major systems visible and built with very high quality construction. No mystery problems in the house. And they get to have that confidence and spend their money making it look the way they want when then purchase. But I guess folks would rather me just hire a flipper and “update” it for them with superficial updates that look decent but aren’t very high quality.
There's a saying "putting lipstick on a pig" or "polishing a turd". If you look at basically every home improvement show, that's what they are doing: making the home look better, but not changing anything fundamental about the home.We bought a large house built in 2000 because it had an in law apartment that could support my mom's 9 cats at the time. This house is big, but very poorly built, everything is cheap.Case in point: the windows and trim. I went to find parts for the windows and learned the windows were from a manufacturer of cheap windows, now out of business. When they put in the wood trim for the windows, they cut the vertical pieces but never primed the cuts. What this meant was that any water that got between the cut and sill became rotted. Many of the window trims were rotted, which the owners of course "repaired" by using some kind of wood repair + paint, so we couldn't see it during inspection. Anyway, we've replaced all the large windows and most of the small (complete replacement, windows and trim, trim with "plastic" so it shouldn't rot), but still have 10 smaller windows to replace (a large house, with in law). This was thousands of dollars.We've also had to replace (some of these are maintenance):- two french doors (rotted trim, no longer was near air tight), replaced with sliding doors;- one entry door to the in law; - entire cooling system, went with heat pumps to get both heating and cooling; looked at geothermal, but was too expensive + needed a whole house generator (another 20k or so);- well pump;- entire water system, with well tank, soft water, and iron mitigation;- outdoor lights (which need to be replaced again due to sun damage);- etc.The front walkway was made by taking large rocks/boulders they found while building the house and putting them into the ground. (This is New England -- there are always rocks, which is why you see so many rock walls.) We're finally having this done, as we can't keep up with the upkeep, and we walk in the grass, not on the "walkway". Another 10K+.We still have the following that need to be done: 10 windows, the front door (trim completely rotted, looks horrendous), another door into a second foyer (yet another cheap door, seals failing), roof. I'd love to add more insulation to the attics (main house + in law), but can't ever get the money to do this.Had ideas of building a home theater/listening room in the unfinished basement. Redoing bathrooms, maybe kitchen. All of that will likely never be done, as we will continue to spend money just to repair what's already bad.Anyone else stuck in a continual loop of spending money on the "bones" of their house, and not on "lipstick"?
