[Closed] House buying – advice for buying an old property?

There will be issues. It'll have a bit of damp, be a bit colder, walls won't be straight. If you can live with niggles like that then go for it. It sounds great. Its been standing a long time and will likely outlast you so I wouldn't be too worried.

Also I wouldn't be rushing to get the "rising damp" fixed. There is likely to be another cause.

I sold my 1910 semi and bought a new build.  I got fed up getting home each day and wondering what the next thing that needed to be repaired might be.  Damp was a constant battle (cold walls and lack of ventilation - see heating costs in the winter!). I've got no windows or fascias to paint every five or six years.  Its also so much cheaper to run, I went though the whole of last winter without needing my thick duvet on the bed.

Its got no character though,

Rising damp is 90% scam (some would say more). Old houses are fun if you don't mind a bit of DIY and making do.

I can foresee a time when we decide to downsize to something smaller and simpler though!

The 1890’s house is still standing. The 2014 one is unlikely to be still up in 2124. New builds are chucked up without any care and built as cheaply as possible for maximum return.

Our house is 1900’s and our previous house was 1890. Sure both need a bit of a fettle but all houses need maintaining.

I am a bit biased as I can’t stand new builds - too small, crammed together and all about profit.

Humble c1850 solid brick worker's cottage here. Bloody love it.

Yes, you have more maintenance (170 years of other people's DIY and bodges), it's a bit colder than a modern house (but some careful insulation has minimised that), getting furniture to fit is a pain (you quickly learn basic woodworking skills), the buying process was a pain (due to shared access over our/other people's land, and having to ensure we aren't liable to pay for repairs to the local church ...), we are still battling slugs in one of the downstairs rooms,  and everything is a bit more expensive as you feel obliged to look after the house and do things it 'deserves', but I wouldn't change it for the world. It's our home, and after we pop out clogs, i'd love to think it will be someone else's.

I’d go for the old house. Most of our area of sw London is terraces built over a hundred years ago, they seem to be surviving well. We had issues when doing ours up, lack of footings on the rear wall being the main one, but if we’d not gone renovating we would never had had an issue.

We also have a younger 1930s detached stone built, slate roofed farmhouse, that is a bit more work because of the old style of build, but primarily because it’s empty a lot. We put a new roof on, decent double glazing sash windows in and updated the heating, from one range for the whole house and it’s much better. Major problem is soot seeping from the chimneys through the outside wall, so painting every few years. I’d quite happily never leave it and it’s got character and history. As long as it’s not listed I would not be too worried.

I'd certainly be getting a full survey, I'd be most worried about the roof (a mate at work just moved into an old house over the summer, the recent heavy rains have led to water coming though his upstairs ceiling...).

On the whole though as you mention the electrics, heating and DG are fairly recent I wouldn't be too worried. My parent's 19th century house has only really had issues with one damp exterior wall (they never got to the bottom of it so just used polystyrene tiles and wallpapered over them...) and WiFi is a pita (inc. Sky Q multi-room).

Old?  My Italian aunt lives in a house built in the 13th century

Newest house I've ever lived in is our current one - 1920s. Hate new builds - boxy, low ceilings, characterless, feel like they'd fall over if you farted too hard.

Yes, you'll have to do more routine maintenance, but unless you or your neighbours start buggering about with major mods that disturb the land, the structure has been there for 120+ years and will continue to be there for your lifetime if its left to its own devices..

Rising damp probably has a straightforward solution that doesn't involve paying somebody to cover the place in chemicals. The old builders were a lot more in tune with the world than we give them credit for - in our case we had issues with rotting stonework - cured in a matter of days by cutting out the Portland cement pointing and replacing it with (breathable) lime mortar as was used when it was originally built.

Nothing will be square, and depending on where you are in the country and what the geology is, you may well find the building does a slow boogie with the changing seasons.(our old S. London flat was a classic example - cracks opening up in winter and closed in summer and vice versa), but that's "character", hey?

Don't bother with a survey - if you have a sensible head, spend a couple of hours poking round the place - under floors, loft spaces, back of cupboards - any where you can get your head in and then apply some common sense. Or take a mate or a trusted builder. They'll give you a straighter answer than a surveyor who just bangs on the front door and charges you a £k to say "yes there's a house there". Again - we had to have a "full" survey for our mortage. He missed anything that couldn't be seen from walking round the outside of it.

Thanks all. Maybe I’m worrying too much – after all, I’m not the first person to buy an older property.

Interesting comments re rising damp, particularly about whether it’s indeed rising damp or not. I’ll look into that further. We’d thought that if we bought we’d remedy it before moving in, having the luxury of keeping our rented on an extra month or two.

Sounds like a fairly straight forward property compared to some: no shared access, not listed, clearly defined boundaries, detached with no shared walls, etc.

Viewed the 2014 modern box last night. Nothing wrong with it and would suit us well, but after viewing the old house for similar money it felt very ‘meh’. Back for a further viewing this weekend…

Old > New.

Old > New.

Except when you're lying in bed listening to 90mph+ gusts of wind riffling the 120 year old slates, which are held on with 120 year old nails.

Are you looking at the house we're currently in ?!!

Upkeep is more, though DG windows will help.

Plumbing, electrical stuff is all a bit random based on what folk have done in past.

It will be draughty, harder to keep warm in winter, might be cooler in summer.

Outhouse is good -- we have an old washhouse / storage shed that is an office / bike shed.

Our previous house had problem with damp but wasn't in the end too much to sort, was earth p[led up outside above a reasonable level, once I dug a soakaway it seems to resolve, was a cold room anyway.

Old houses are great, but as someone said, there's the possibility of hundreds of years of other people's bodges.

Our last house was an Edwardian terrace, and everything that could have been bodged, was bodged.

Our current house is Victorian, probably pre-1875 as there is no DPC (prob worth checking that), and again there are bodges everywhere you look.

We're slowly putting bits right as we go, but it can be a real pain - for example the stopcock is at the back of a deep cupboard at a difficult angle as a result of a more recent extension, and as we start having to deal with issues, we're seeing examples of the contractors cutting corners and doing things on the cheap that wouldn't have been apparent to the previous owners.

It's just part of owning an old house!

for example the stopcock is at the back of a deep cupboard at a difficult angle as a result of a more recent extension

at least you had a stopcock. we've just had to sort out our water supply which was a lead pipe emerging from within a 3ft thick stone wall. we thought we'd isolated it outside under a concrete slab but managed to cut off another two properties...

sorted now, but took 5 days, a lot of digging and a lot of swearing.

edit: that comes across a bit 4 yorkshiremen. still, wouldn't live in a modern wooden box unless it was a self built one.

Re: Damp.  It'll have been built using lime mortar, so is (in essence) permeable.  Our gutters are playing up to the extent that we had water running down an inside wall the other day....

Basically old houses rock, and you can totally justify fitting a stove in every room....  Higher ceilings and poor insulation mean they cost more to heat or you accept living in a cooler house (our thermostat is set to come on at 17degrees, and 15 at night as we have small kids).

Allow for dodgy plumbing, electrics, guttering and roofs.  Re-roof costs about 5k ish I believe.  Oh, and if the roof is original it'll probably be unfelted, with the slates exposed to the loft space.  And due some work.

If it's a wreck I'd be looking at stripping back to the brick-work room by room and fitting insulated plaster board to improve thermal efficiency, and draft-proofing the floors.  Unfortunately if it's in decent nick and has original features, you;ll instantly devalue the property in doing so!

Cheers, Keith (house c1895).

We're 18 months into ownership of an old house. could be mid 1800s, could be older, could be slighter younger. It's certainly had bits added over time, the roof raised and various other bits done. We've done a lot of work to it (the majority before we moved in) and it had been empty for nearly 2 years before we bought it, We moved in with no heating, only half the rewire done, no kitchen and water to one bathroom. Washing up in the shower gets tedious very quickly.

It's a long list what we've done, and what we want to do (as others have said above, a new roof would be nice) but taking it a job at a time makes it manageable.

Would we do it again? YES, no question! It's in a lovely location and its weirdness just makes us love it more. 🙂

Buy the house that suits your needs, not the one that is more interesting. I have owned two >100 year old houses and loved them both. The first one was damp but generally okay, the second one was kinda perfect in most ways. But then a family came along and it stopped being perfect - only one bathroom, only two beds (plus attic room but a bit faffy to get into that room), no room to extend, small garden, no storage.

We've now got a 30 yr old 4 bed detached with large secure garden, utility room, downstairs loo, en suite, big garage with plenty of storage - it just works better for us. I can see us downsizing to an old character property again when our girls have grown up though.

Our last Victorian terrace flagged damp when bought and sold.  Was never a problem when occupied and heating on.  As mentioned would be more worried about the roof and guttering and get that checked.

The only other issues were rear access.  There are some weird laws on back alleys that are not always council owned, especially if sewers complicate it.  But the solicitors will pick up on it and the reality of the situation can be gleaned from a conversation with neighbours.

The other thing is more 'recent' extensions those are often where the problems lie.  The back bedroom was always 5 degrees colder than the rest of the house and attracted mould.

If it’s a wreck I’d be looking at stripping back to the brick-work room by room and fitting insulated plaster board to improve thermal efficiency, and draft-proofing the floors.  Unfortunately if it’s in decent nick and has original features, you;ll instantly devalue the property in doing so!

Whereas I would say if that was what you wanted to do then buy a modern house. Old houses have character which is another word for flaws and you learn to live with and love them.

if in the market for a new house its hard to look past the deals your getting on new builds.

how ever the old saying you dont get something for nothing has never been truer.

there are quite a few local companies i would not entertain buying a new build from having seen the state of near new houses and their *remedials* that the companies have done. (*+ my dads been run off their sites for refusing to sign off completion certs on some shockers)

some of them are questionable for lasting the length of the mortgage - just cause its new dont assume it wont leak or have damp.

equally i dont think everyone that buys an old house has the mentality or the eye for condition that a house is in prior to buying - but those that do can usually see through a duffer.

I'd say to get a comprehensive survey but treat it with a pinch of salt.  It will flag up *lots of things* but the majority will be simply describing an old property.  Our previous house was circa 1890, the survey was pages long, and we pretty much ignored all of it apart from doing a bit of gardening to expose an air brick which was blocked.

There will be things you'll swear at, bodge-on-bodge electrics can mean you end up rewiring when you just want a new light installed, but if you find a house for life with character then go for it.

The only way I'd pick a new build house would be if I specced it and oversaw the build myself.

Yes a shoddy brick extension is often worse than the original stone.

Old for me every time. Ours is a Victorian semi - we've been in it 20 years and nothing is ever finished, there's always something that needs attention!

It's not the shoddy workmanship of a new build that puts me off, but the generally soulless estates they are built on. Like something from the Truman show.

Old for me every time. Ours is a Victorian semi – we’ve been in it 20 years and nothing is ever finished, there’s always something that needs attention!

Word.

I bought a tin of red paint for the back door on 28th September 1997.

The door is still green.

Hi, 1812 build here.

Nothing's straight, shelves have to be "fitted", bricks go straight on to dirt, somewhere in our back garden there might (or might not) be a well (which nobody has yet found), one of the walls is held upright with a giant bolt. Etc etc yada yada. All that "interesting" stuff aside...

Check the roof. Check it again. Slate is a bit $$$ compared to cheapo tiles. Likewise the guttering.

The heating will be on a lot. Otherwise your damp problem will become a mould problem. Especially if your walls lack cavities. Also the speed at which older houses get cold is generally "a bit of an issue". 1890 feels a bit borderline on whether you'll have them or not. Even if you do they might not have been done in quite the current standard or method.

Ventilation is also important. Stoves help. With heat and ventilation.

Figure out if you are all lime or portland.

Plumbing, electrics, all recently done = not a problem (relatively).

You'll always have a nice big list of jobs to do.

Wouldn't swap ours for a new build though.

ha yes ive spent sunday and last night on a ladder on my roof re tiling a dormer and replacing all the woodwork on the dormer - ive probably got the rest of the week and at least one day this weekend at it as well .... .but as above i wouldn't swap it for a taylor wimpey special.

*i drive a 30+ year old car and ride a 15 year old bike ..... me and new things generally dont mix.

I wrote a long, protracted, narrative about my thoughts on your situation but I got logged out halfway through and lost it all .. 🤠

To summarise:

Live in the house you fall in love with.

Damp is a common problem, the estimate £5k isn’t enough but its put in as a clause to cover both Mortgage Co and Surveyors backs.. it might have damp yes, but it could be nothing or it could be expensive. Budget for it or do the work yourself.

Love where you live.

Old is the new New, it’s all about recycling and re-purposing.

Character, you can’t create it. It is something intrinsic with the object.

Love the place you live in.

HTHs

Our 1890s terraced house supposedly had 'rising damp'. Turned out to be a leaking shower tray....

Dry as a bone since I fixed that and no damp proof course as they didn't do them back then.

Love the place you live in.

True, but if that old house doesn't work for your circumstances then you could soon find out it was just a fling.

True, but if that old house doesn’t work for your circumstances then you could soon find out it was just a fling.

yes, but when you sell it it'll still be an old house, in fact even more so, whereas the new house will be less new and lose a bit of the one thing it had going for it.

"True, but if that old house doesn’t work for your circumstances then you could soon find out it was just a fling."

applies to any house ever bought. New Old or self built.