Did the 1914 house have electricity? With "acetylene lighting plant" being extra, I think not.
Did the 1914 house have more than one toilet? Cost per square foot doesn't cover what goes into the square foot, and fixtures cost a lot more than an empty room.
Does it cost 5x to add electrical wiring into a house? I would happily take a 1915 house and upgrade it.
I love in a 'premium' newbuild block in a 1st world country, and the construction quality is so atrocious it would be condemned in some 2nd world countries!
The builders forgot to connect the extractor fan to any ducting, it just sits inside the ceiling and makes noise, the piping of the sprinkler system in not secured to any structure and is wobbling and threatwning a flood, the guy that made a hole in the ceiling for the sprinkler missed and we have a hole in the ceiling and a sprinkler somewhere inside. Last week a hot water mains has burst creating a flood of scalding water and 13 floors had to be evacuated. We had a nice steaming waterfall down the side of the building 40 meters down. The electric meters are installed in breach of code.
It's a 23 story building and elevators never work, etc.
The building was completed 4 years ago, apartments sold at a premium to 'investors' based in tax heavens - not a single resident here owns the flat. Mine is based in Cayman islands.
> I would happily take a 1915 house and upgrade it.
Why do you think it's so much easier/better to upgrade an old house than fix constructions errors with a new one?
I live in an early-20th-century house with minimally-acceptable plumbing and electric (pipes not secured to the structure? welcome to the club!), no insulation, terribly cold windows, one tiny bathroom, sometimes-wobbly feeling floors, etc.
"Upgrading it" would basically be "rip it down to the studs and redo it all" which is basically "everything but one of the easiest parts of new construction" anyway.
The idea was basically 'I would rather upgrade a well-built 1900 house than try to fix a poorly built, possibly structurally flawed modern one'.
I am not sure it would be easier, but my genereal experiece is telling me the outcome is usually better.
I think the new 'buy to let' phenomenom makes it possible to sell shoddy construction as premium houses to investors based in tax heavens becuase it looks shiny and htey don't give two shits.
Did the 1914 house have more than one toilet? Cost per square foot doesn't cover what goes into the square foot, and fixtures cost a lot more than an empty room.