Quote:
Originally Posted by jhynesrockmtn
I just bought and rented out the house I was living in. 4 1/8% loan with no points. Moved 10 minutes from work into a nice older residential neighborhood. I would be careful of any recently built McMansions. I'm not a big fan of newer construction. The materials, workmanship, etc. can leave a lot to be desired. If you buy a newer house, make sure you still do a thorough inspection.
It was a hard decision. I put a fair bit of my savings into this place and don't have enough cash left now to do much to it but it is livable for now. I'm keeping my fingers crossed the market does not dip much lower and will recover some over the next few years.
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Very astute - this is an observation I've made elsewhere in the past and agree with again here; it runs contrary to the prevailing mentality out there that "newer is better" and "bigger is better". Personally I wouldn't touch anything built during the "bubble" years of about 2004-2008. No way. I saw way too many shenannigans going on during that time. Shoddy workmanship, terrible quality control, poor materials availability and lots of substitutions, inspections glossed over or "paid off", lots of nonsense. Guys were stamping out garbage all over the landscape and most of it will be falling apart in 10 years if it isn't already. Pure throwaway junk - with a high price tag at the time ($500k+, $600k+, $700k+, etc.) I've even seen "high end" residential ($2M+) that had really questionable finishes and what I'd consider to be average-to-poor construction quality.
One potential benefit of newer construction is that it'll (theoretically) be more energy efficient and give you good operating cost performance - assuming it was built to code and that the undersized, low-bid, Made-in-China HVAC systems don't crap out after five years...
Personally I'd look for something built in the 90s. Or an old home with some character. But that's just me.