SFH in Bay Area

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wanderlusf

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wanderlusf
Apr 24 53 Comments

A lot of the single family homes (SFH) in the Bay Area are old, built before 1970s.

Do folks generally have a liking to newer construction relative to them?

Some reasons why we are hesitant to buy old SFH.

- low ceiling height
- floors on occasions creek when you walk
- crawl space underneath the home, instead of concrete slab. This is a major psychological block for us - since we believe maintenance is hard (eg: claustrophobic); grew up never getting accustomed to homes without concrete slabs

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 TOP 53 Comments
  • I have sfh got last year, 1963
    Renovating completely inside out - new drywall, complete new electrical and plumbing, new flooring, new bathroom - let me put it this way, everything’s new except exterior walls

    Now if you don’t fix or take care of behind walls things then u will end up having issues coming up always with old house
    Apr 24 12
  • Amazon
    abadperson

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    abadperson
    Old homes might be nice if work isn’t busy. You’ll be spending a lot of time troubleshooting.

    Even when hiring contractors, the work needs to be supervised which is a headache.
    Apr 24 3
    • Amazon
      abadperson

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      abadperson
      Electrical wires, sewage, pipes, roofs all around the house have a lifespan. The worst case scenario is when you need to tear down walls, floorboards or dig up the ground under or around the house.

      Older builds also use tiling and materials which are not appealing to look at and come with wear. An ugly environment does not contribute to quality of life. Generally an entire floor or house need to be updated at the same time.

      Every worker for a contractor vary in skill. I had past issues where a guy damaged wiring behind walls and did not report the issue to his boss. I had to prove that this was not broken before and find where the wire was damaged myself. Huge headache.

      It’s better to find a new house that you like as is.
      Apr 24
    • Meta
      wanderlusf

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      wanderlusf
      OP
      Sounds like a lot of work. My line of thought was generally to buy a smaller square footage home on a bigger lot given our current budget constraints; and then expand the home over time. Sounds like that’d be a lot of trouble?

      I’m not worried generally about remodeling the kitchen, bathroom, recessed lights, painting the home, etc
      Apr 24
  • Google
    gokull

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    gokull
    A lot of new homes are not built in Bay Area these days. That is the main reason we are settling down for a older home.
    Apr 24 9
  • New
    kTnt33

    New

    kTnt33
    Floors can creek even with concrete slab. Also how is "claustrophobic" an example of maintenance hard. Why do you think maintenance is hard with crawl space?
    Apr 24 3
  • VMware
    bababum

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    bababum
    We prefer crawl space over concrete slab because it is more stable during earthquake and allows better access to things like electrical, plumbing.
    Apr 25 2