Posted on 02/12/2021 9:18:49 PM PST by dennisw
NORWICH, Conn. – American millennials with budget constraints are breaking out of their pandemic coops to find affordable dream homes in far-flung places.
For funeral home director Kate Reinhart, from Utah, that dream is an octagonal Victorian that recalls the macabre Addams Family mansion seen in cartoons, films and a TV series.
Her scientist husband Cameron found his first job near Norwich, Connecticut, a town with one of the largest concentrations of 18th- and early 19th-century houses in New England.
For just $85,000 couple bought the 1885 house replete with stained glass, artisanal light fixtures and winding banisters. They plan to put some $100,000 into a massive renovation.
“I do feel like we appreciate it more now during the pandemic to have more space to ourselves,” Kate said. “People are more self-conscious about being on top of each other in tiny apartment buildings. In New York City, people are fleeing to here.”
The trend is clear from visits to CheapOldHouses, a website founded by Elizabeth Finkelstein in 2016 to promote the purchase and preservation of historical houses.
Followers of the site’s Instagram account have steadily doubled every week since U.S. pandemic lockdowns began in March, to about 20,000, she said. About 42% are aged 25-34, and about 75% are women.
“The mantra of real estate has always been ‘location, location, location.’ For the first time that’s being flipped a little bit on its head,” Finkelstein said. “We are living in a time when people are willing to kind of take risks, maybe risks that they’ve been wanting to take their whole life.”
Homes on CheapOldHouses.com tend to be in the U.S. Midwest, South and Rust Belt, where many sell for less than $100,000. Houses that cost more in North America, Europe and elsewhere are also listed in Finkelstein’s monthly newsletter.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Start fixing up and get away from your little phone screens. That generation is lacking in hands on physical labor. Now they will get smarter and real world educated.
Dealing with cheating contrators will be an education.
Their $100,000 renovation will easily become $150,000 they just don’t know it yet!!!
Here and there, across the country, there are parents High Fiving their good luck. It took a pandemic lockdown for their children to get focused in saving money and to finally GET OUT of the Family Home!
better get used to dealing with lead paint abatement.
Didn’t Tom Hanks make a movie about that?
Yes, The Money Pit. Lol
Once they open the walls they have NO DEA what the hell they are in for then the plumbing, electrical, never ending permits AND living elsewhere paying two mortgages while ALL of this takes place!!
I lived in an 1890s style home for a year when I was 25. It certainly had its charm along ith the high ceilings, tall windows and enormous basement, but thankfully, I was a renter and not an owner.
Recently, I checked on the old place with Google Street View. Somebody had really put some bucks in it............looked fantastic. Glad to see some of those places are kept up.
LOL! Thinking of scenes from “The Money Pit”.
They bought a house cheap in Norrich. But ask them again about cheap when they get the tax bills!
“Dealing with cheating contrators will be an education.”
Not to mention what heating and cooling those old houses can cost.
Built in 1885 it probably has 10 ft ceilings and large windows and doors.
Then the taxes come into play.
Heheh, welcome to reality youngsters!
Yeah, they are all a big hole in the yard, you keep throwing money in. I built mine back in 1989. I’m still building. I retired to help mother put in new floor, a gas insert, gas cook stove, and stuff she hasn’t thought of yet. Little fixer upper my left testiclese. It was new when I built it and it’ll be new when they bury my ugly butt. :)
There can be some bargains, but you have to know what you’re getting into and probably putting in a lot of sweat equity too. The really cheap houses will typically be in a crappy neighborhood too.
Don’t get me started about North Idaho contractors.
.
100k will be gone in a flash on that 1880 big old Victorian house.
I bought a very large, 100-year-old "mansion" in rural W. TN a few years ago, and continue to put money into rennovation. Personally I love it - no regrets at all.
It didn't take me long to learn to get referrals for decent contractors at the local hardware store (friendly folks!).
Last summer we re-concreted the driveway and put in some gravel parking spaces for guests (it's on 3 acres). We've got some wood curing so that we can put in an ornamental wooden farm fence along the parking area. I intend to hang a sign on the fence that reads "GG" (few will realize that's for "Galt's Gulch"), and put some planters at the base of the fence. Next week we start rennovating the bathroom that will be attached to what will be my Mother's bedroom.
This summer we'll start restoring a concrete side patio that looks out over the koi pond to it's original glory, and updating the inside stairs to be more Gone-With-The-Wind-ish. I also want to get some raised gardens in the back yard, and construct a hen house and chicken pen that will accommodate 16 chickens.
I also need to get the koi pond cleaned up some to make this Spring's bullfrogs happy (we like to sit out on the front porch at night and listen to them croak) and get started re-building the original greenhouse that used to be attached out back.
I've got new appliances being delivered next week.
Downtown looks like a ghost town until you start to appreciate the "bright spots". There's only one restaurant in town, and when you go in on a Friday night for the fish fry, everybody knows you and says hello.
Lately I've been thinking that if I turned one of those abandoned buildings on Main Street into a pizza place I'd probably do real well.
I'm hoping to get moved in before the "lightning bugs" show up this Spring. They put on a real light show out back in the evenings.
It can absolutely take some dollars to get these old places whipped into shape, but it should be built into the purchase price. And, if you don't have the money immediately, you just do without for a while (I lived on the property for the first couple of years that I got it, and had to "live without"). But getting these old places fixed up can really be its own reward, IMHO.
Old people routinely bash millenials as do-nothing, unmotivated, basement-dwelling slackers. These are the same old people who, in their younger days as Boomers and GenXers, were called drugged out hippies and depressed, self-absorbed grungers, respectively, by the then-old people.
For the most part, Boomers and GenXers turned out ok, and generally lean conservative. It's an age thing. It almost always happens.
But THIS generation, man I tell you...we were NOTHING like them, say the long-term memory deprived Boomers and GenXers. And blah blah blah.
So this article covers Millenials who aren't eating Tide pods but instead are taking initiative, taking risks, buying homes, and renovating....this is a GREAT thing. They are showing signs of maturing, even (dare I say) pursing the American Dream.
Now I understand why some kids never visit their parents.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.