10 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Buying an Older Home

I want to preface this post by saying that I love our home. When we first walked through our house I knew it was ours. It just felt right.

In April of 2016 we sold our brand-new home that we’d lived in for 2 years (we didn’t build it, but it was new when we bought it) in place of our current home that was built in 1980 that needed a good deal of updating. Many people thought we were crazy, but after living in our previous home for 2 years we realized we wanted a different layout, an older neighborhood that had mature trees, and to be in a bit of a different location neighborhood-wise. Plus, we had been bitten with the we wanted to make our home “ours” bug, but a lot of the updates we wanted to do we didn’t feel were practical or would be a wise investment for our previous home, given that everything was brand new. We chose the unpopular route and decided to sell our home. We loved our first home and learned so much living there, but we do not regret our decision and feel we made the right choice for our family.

We really love our current home and how much potential it has. If you’ve been following along for a while, you know we have been slowly renovating each room, as time and money allow. There are so many things we have learned along the way and things we wish we had known prior to buying an older home. We honestly love having an older home and I’m not sure we will buy a “new” house again (never say never) simply because we really like the older neighborhoods and we both enjoy being able to pour our love and style into our home through renovation projects, but I thought it would be helpful to post about the things we have learned in case you or someone you know is thinking of buying an older home.

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1 – Have a Structural Inspection of Your Home (or a 2^nd regular inspection)

We were hit hard with an unexpected expense shortly after we moved in. We wanted to take a wall down, so we hired a structural engineer to ensure it wasn’t load bearing. He determined the wall was fine to take down, but after one quick walk around our house he immediately noticed we had settling issues and wanted to look in the basement. Come to find out all the joists that were supporting our dining room were not attached to anything on one side of the room and it had been this way for almost 40 years!! This was apparently obvious, or should have been to a seasoned inspector, even a non-structural inspector, and was something our original inspector completely missed. This was a huge problem. Our house had majorly settled over the years due to this issue and as a result most of the flooring (though the unevenness was hidden beneath carpet) and walls on our main level are far from level. We had to hire a contractor to attach the joists that should have been attached when the house was built as well as install a new support beam in the basement to basically lift the whole middle part of our house.

If you don’t want to hire a structural inspector I would at the least have two inspections, especially if your home is on the older side.

2 – Know What Kind of Trees Are in Your Yard & Their Age

We love the mature trees in our yard. They add so much beauty and privacy, but a lot of trees = a lot of leaves in the fall. We are fortunate that our city picks up yard waste weekly and we easily fill 10+ bags of leaves every weekend of late October and November. We don’t mind the work too much, but it is a lot of leaves.

We also have two locust trees that drop huge bean pods in the early fall. Our yard looks like a sea of brown bean pods for a few weeks every year until we clean them all up. Unlike leaves, bean pods are very, very hard and won’t compost easily at all… meaning they do a lot of damage to our grass if we let them sit on the grass for too long.

Also, several of the trees in our yard are very large, very old, and very expensive to trim and/or remove if necessary.

3 – Be Aware of Trees Close to the Home

We have multiple trees that were planted very close to our foundation. This can cause multiple problems including foundation issues, roof issues (if leaves get stuck on your roof, gutters, and eaves) causing wood rot and depending on how close the tree is to your home there is risk it could fall on your roof. We knew this when we purchased our home of course, but the expense of slowly removing these trees after we fully realized the risks has been substantial. A large tree can cost upwards of $1,500 in our area to remove depending on exactly how big it is, if it is damaged, and how close it is to the house.

4 – Leaks, Wood Rot, and Mold (Inside and Out)

Mold. It is something you do not want to have in your house. I mentioned before, but we did have our house inspected. Even good inspectors can miss things (they are human), which is why I would encourage 2 inspections, if possible. Our inspector missed 2 areas of mold which we had to later remediate ourselves. Our inspector identified a leak in the washer shut off valve in the laundry room, which was fixed after the inspection, but did not mention the fact that there might be mold behind the wall where the leak was occurring. We did not find the mold until we were renovating the laundry room and then it caused a delay in our timeline because it had to be addressed. Mold remediation, depending on the type and amount, can be very expensive to remediate.

Speaking of leaks, check window sills and the walls and baseboards around windows for evidence of leaks or prior leaks. We have paneling in our living room that was disguising a completely rotten window sill due to a previous leak. We did not find this until we started painting the living room paneling when it became very apparent as my paint brush all but pushed through the wood paneling to the drywall behind it only to expose rotten studs and moldy drywall below one of the windows in our living room.

I am glad we found and addressed the mold issues we have had so far, but it makes me anxious thinking of where else there might be mold.

5 – Nothing Will Be Level

Even if you don’t have major structural issues like we did, don’t expect any of the walls or floors to be level in an older home. This will be especially apparent if you plan to tackle any renovation or DIY projects. Installing trim? Backer rod will be probably be your new best friend. Installing flooring, especially hardwoods or tile? Be sure to communicate with your contractor (if you are using one) that you expect the subfloor to be leveled prior to when the new flooring is installed.

6 – Asbestos and Lead

Depending on when your house was built you may be at risk for asbestos or lead in your home’s finishes. Our 1980 home was in the asbestos window so prior to have our popcorn ceilings removed we tested the popcorn ceiling for asbestos. We also ensured the flooring we removed was not asbestos vinyl. Luckily, we have found no asbestos in our home so far, but it is something you need to consider depending on the age of your home.

7 – Look Closely at Existing Trim and Wall Paint

Upon first walk through of our home, though very dated, it appeared clean and the walls and the trim (not all trim was painted in our house, some was left stained) had a fresh coat of paint. Once we started our renovations we realized most of our rooms had painted over wallpaper that was starting to peel and bubble. Why oh why would they have done this?? Now each room we tackle we must add at least an extra week onto the project timeline to account for wallpaper removal (it is much harder to remove wall paper once it’s been painted over) and drywall patching. Also, we initially planned to reuse all the existing trim in the house, but once we got up close and personal with it to paint it we realized how truly poor of shape the trim was in. As a result, we decided to invest in all new trim for our home, which was not something we had planned up front.

8 – Know When to Hire the Pro

Whether it is plumbing, electrical, or simply a something you aren’t too familiar with (maybe lawn care or painting), it is always good to know your limits and know when it is time to hire a professional. With that in mind, try to budget for both the expected and unexpected calls to the professional. For example, the toilet in our hall bath has been a problem since we moved in. After numerous attempts to fix the obnoxious and unhealthy sewer gas smell coming from the toilet we determined it was time to call in the plumber. The plumber luckily was able to fix the problem with a few extra wax rings and some maneuvering of how the toilet sat to the tune of a couple hundred dollars, but he also gave us the satisfaction that our toilet was indeed a unique set-up and he hadn’t ever seen anything like it.

9 – Expenses Never Stop, Always Have a Safety Net

This doesn’t just apply to older homes, but it can be more apparent in older homes. The expenses of owning a home never stop. Once you fix one thing something else is bound to need to be fixed or addressed. Or it can be something simple like your property taxes increasing. Our property taxes have increased steadily each year since we purchase our home. While it is a good sign that property values in our area are increasing, it also means that the portion of our mortgage payment for escrow has increased every year as well (or if you don’t have a mortgage payment this is something you would pay out of pocket). When you own a home, especially an older home, it is smart to always have at least a small safety net of savings so if something does come up you are able to address it.

10 – Renovation and Home Projects Almost Always Take Longer Than Expected

When we first moved in I made a very detailed, grand list of everything we wanted to do to our home in the first year, with the idea we would be mostly finished with everything by the second year we lived in our home. Well, almost 3 years later and we are still not finished with that list, and that is quite alright. We quickly learned projects typically take longer than expected. Plus, we did not buy this house to flip it and sell it right away, so we were not in a rush, which I must keep reminding myself. After the first 6+ months of steady and long hours of working on our house nights and weekends we started getting burnt out. We started to scale back on the frequency of the projects we planned to complete, which extended our renovation timeline. Honestly, this has been the best thing we have done. It gives us time to live outside of our day jobs and renovation projects. We have traveled more, spent more time with family and friends, and were able to focus on things other than our house. We continue to use this approach now and it has helped keep us sane among the craziness a renovation project can be. While we still want to help our house realize the full potential it has, we are trying to be better about not rushing the process.

Why I Would Still Buy Our House Again

After reading everything above, you might be scared off from buying an older home (or a home in general), but don’t let it scare you! These are simply the things that we would do different or would want to know if we were to ever purchase another older home in the future. I would 100% still have bought our current house, I would have just done things a little differently. Like taking the initial hit and paying for two inspections, negotiating much more when buying to try an account for the “unkowns” that may pop up the year after you close, and asking more detailed questions of our realtor and the previous homeowners.

We have created so many memories in our home and it has taught us so many invaluable skills. We’ve learned responsibility, taking ownership, being proud when we accomplish something we didn’t think we could, and most of all learning to renovate a home together.

It’s so important to take a step back and remember how far we’ve come with this home. Scroll through to see a few before and after snippets!