I'm still fond of the Tudor style, but alas it does seem impractical.
One of the reasons is that many architects after the war considered it to be fascistic to build anything with ornaments on the outside. You can still buy new clothes in old fashion style and new books using old fashioned typography, but you can't buy a new flat in an old style flat.
Some architects today say we are living in the age of modernism, not the baroque or roccoco, and therefore should not build old style buildings. Art history was not intended to be used to dictate which style to use when designing anything. Architects seems to abuse art historic terms to get their way.
And good luck finding someone capable of fitting it all together such that it's still perfectly tight after 100+ years of winters and summers with no AC and poor heat. If such a person still exists I'm sure they charge a fortune.
It will have been "maintained" by people of varying skills, desires, tastes, budgets, etc over its lifetime. Many of the repairs I've had to do in my old house have involved undoing or fixing the previous owner's poor work.
The flip side, our house is over 100 years old and has most of its original windows. Other than some painting, glazing, and caulking they're fine & pretty weathertight. It has 12" wide floor joists ... I could park a car in the living room. And it has glorious architectural details not found in (or poorly imitated in) modern homes.
The inventory of old homes will never be larger than what we have now. Every year, old homes are lost to fire, flood, tear down, and insensitive remuddlings. If you're not willing to live in and love an old house for what it is, please, buy a new home.
Just knowing all the skill that went into making the old features out of wood has been lost is sad/ disappointing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAT2-H8NESQ
Since they are fake and have no purpose other than being ornamental they are prone to being the wrong size and just look really, really off. If you're going to make them ornamental they should look like they could be functional.
Fake shutters that are the wrong size/location really grind my gears as well.
Yup absolutely. Thankfully current owners of historic homes in the Bay Area often look for buyers who will appreciate the building and not want to tear it down. There's a house in Atherton which was the original ranch house in the early 20th century there. The owners refuse to sell it to anyone who wants to demolish it (buyers likely have to sign something), and it's been on the market for many many years now for that reason.
Or it could be an inconsistent mash-up of systems from different eras, with some knob-and-tube wiring still exposed in the basement, no insulation in the walls and a half-hearted roll of fiberglass in the attic, and Baron von Frankenstein's heating system. That would be bad.
On the other hand, "high cost of remodeling" is bunk unless you have an Historical Preservation Society glaring at you. All normal remodeling is expensive in every house. It's just that an HPS can make it much more expensive, and constrain you not to do things you want.
Yes, some of the renovations were due to age and/or lack of maintenance over time. But there's no shortage of horror stories associated with problems in recently-constructed houses as well.
This is so true in Boston. A lot of HPSs specify that you can't change the exterior facing portion of a building, even if you make every effort to keep the appearance while, e.g. adding 4 inches of styrofoam for insulation behind the siding, or if the changes you make are historically correct, e.g. 4 inches of styrofoam + stucco on top of brick walls. They don't particularly care about the interior, so often your only choice if you want to insulate is to insulate on the interior, which, ironically, reduces the building's durability.
We've brought everything up to code and anyone walking into the house says it looks beautiful but it's been a huge expense and time consuming doing 95% of the work ourselves.
My anecdotal experience:
The very old houses will require expensive systems upgrades - heating, plumbing, electricity, etc. But the quality of the craftsmanship is unbelievably good. It was built to last, whereas the newer 1960s home and my sister's 2000s-era condo was made with lots of cheap crap that has its own replacement burden.
Renovations vary in quality, too. Our downstairs bathroom was renovated in the 60s with cheap, ugly materials. The windows were replaced 15 years ago around the house using a second-tier brand, and they squeal loudly when they are opened. But another owner did a kitchen renovation 10 years ago using high-quality materials that have stood up quite well.
The owners prior to them, though, were amazing. Their renovations were solid, beautiful, and extensive. The contrast between any work done by them and work done by the most recent owners is painfully obvious.
On the more extreme side I've seen homes completely rotted by owners, requiring over a year of in-depth repairs to bring the house back to life. It's very sad to see.
It's all about taking care of the property.
The contractor basically said the parts that were hundreds of years old would be around for another couple hundred years, but the stuff that was - 20-50 years old had all sore of issues...
Avoiding older homes because they are old isn't great advice. Avoiding homes that are falling apart is better advice (for most people, not all) but not all old homes are falling apart and not all newer homes are well built and will be falling apart in 10 years or sooner.
Most older homes (that are still standing) are well built, having been built to last, and some have been well maintained and upgraded over the years. The best quality houses I've ever lived in were over a century old. The worst quality house I've ever lived in was 40 years old and was the only "modern" house I've ever lived in and every single corner was cut building the thing.
Older homes often have some great architectural features that you can't find today, you aren't going to find a 20 year old home with an ornate hand carved mahogany staircase, for example. A lot of it comes down to personal preference and what you are used to.
The water never tastes funny.
My friends moved into a (rented) older, turn of the century, home that was poorly maintained and it's a garbage place to live. But it isn't like that's not obvious when you tour the place. My other friends bought a house built in the 1700s and it's the most well-built house I've ever seen. It has its quirks but its well-maintained and has most of the modern features you'd expect. It's also very well isolated.
Problem with newer homes, especially McMansions, is many are poor construction that aren't meant to last. They went up fast and cheap. This doesn't apply to all new construction, of course, but there was rush to build during the housing bubble. Corners were cut. Some houses were meant to look just good enough to sell, not to last a century.
Neighborhood is more important and theres not always a choice of a new home in many neighborhoods. For example, when we bought our house we had no choice but to buy old construction unless we wanted to change our neighborhood preference. Then we'd have to buy a McMansion on the outskirts of town away from everything except other McMansions. We'd be unable to walk anywhere, much further drive from work, much further drive to pretty much anywhere, and we'd have to buy double the amount of home than we'd prefer to buy.
If it's an established neighborhood you're going to get established homes!
But saying "avoid old homes" as generic advice to everyone is terrible advice. It's all tradeoffs and personal preference and also quality of the specific home. A well-built, well-maintained home is still a well-built, well-maintained home.
Many only know how to parrot "factoids" they've heard somewhere. "Don't buy and living in 100 year old houses" is one such example. Maybe they just don't like that older homes are cheaper and they are trying to maximize their commission.