|
Nw Iowa | Everybody is in a different stage and different financial position. My dad who was always land poor is living in a old house that been remodeled many times, because he could only afford to do a smaller project at a time. The house doesn’t have the best floor plan and part of basement is considerable older than rest. Over time probably spent what a new home would have cost but did it as they could afford it. . Mom and Dad who are in their 80’s love where they are at and hopefully will be able to live their for a lot longer. They could easily afford a new home now but they would not be any happier. I did very similar as we bought a home in a small town which we could afford, a very nice home built in late 20’s with hardwood floors etc that had had a fairly extensive kitchen remodel but when kids left we realized what had been a good home with children maybe wasn’t going to be feasible as we aged. Bedrooms were upstairs, short on closet space, small bathroom, steeper stairs, basement was okay but had some poor blocks that would need repair, and not very usable for anything. Smaller town infrastructure was in decline. We started looking at just a master bath remodel alone made us start to think that long term maybe to start looking at building new. Found right piece of land on a little lake , much closer to groceries, medical etc and built new. Sold our old home for about what we had in it , no regrets. We lived in temporary quarters for what we thought was going to be 6 months, ended up being 2 1/2 years while we studied house plans, costs etc. Put in a lot of things as far as wheel chair friendly, 1 floor living, etc so hopefully we can live here until very end. Biggest advantage of new is a more usable floor plan, new utilities, electrical, insulation and everything nice and straight. Also designed a daylight basement so our children can stay from time to time with their families and have some privacy. We built a pretty unique home but could have built it bare bones for 1/2 iif we had just went with a conventional ranch and kept interior finish’s lower end. Point I am trying to make is dad was happy remodeling as he could do it as he could afford and invested money else where, we were in a position that I didn’t want to start remodeling as I knew long term we would never be able to get our money out in the small town. I thought our new home would never be sellable for what we had in it but market has come to us so to speak. Although they don’t sell super fast , there have been a number of homes in our price range in our area that have sold. We have lived in it now for 10 years with very little upkeep.
I guess if I had a good solid house with a somewhat usable floor plan right where I needed it I would sure look in to remodeling but just make sure you have somebody come in and do a in depth look at structure and what your plans are before you plunge in. A educated unbiased opinion is most valuable in decision making process. They will understand what is load bearing and what is not, evaluate foundation and see other pitfalls that you will not. Plaster walls, asbestos, poor wiring, plumbing that is shot, furnace, poor insulation, proper ventilation, , poor windows, doors, crooked floors, roofs are all money traps that need to be in budget to compare apples to apples. Also look at future upkeep, are you doing some rooflines that will cause some future problems? Is 70% of home new but haven’t dealt wit other 30% of old so future problems? Here any building permit for any addition will trigger a septic inspection which will usually mean a new septic system. It is also much easier to get a bid on a new home compared to a remodel as contractor does not know what he will all run into so make sure your budget includes a pretty big contingency portion for unknowns on a remodel. | |
|
Remodel or Build new
