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 ...
Nice! Thanks for sharing. Sounds amazing.
That’s no lie. We bought a 2300 sq. ft.+ HUD home that, on the surface, seemed to be in really good shape. 5 BR, 3 BA on 1.2 acres, in-ground pool, all amenities. Got it for half the assessed value. Good interest rate, fair closing costs. I bet we’ve been nickeled and dimed out of $20k for hidden repairs and upgrades so far. Talk about a pig in a poke - I think we could have built new for what we’ve been bled for in the last eight years. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.
Yeah, and just wait until they start having to deal with the onerous, if not impossible regulations democrats have put into place to “protect” both the environment and us from ourselves.
I wonder how man6 of them thought of wetland issues, bad water, radon in basements, and asbestos and lead remediation.
... and asbestos abatement!
Regards,
You haven’t seen shady contractors til you’ve dealt with them after a hurricane/flood ! A good many have gone to jail or fined into bankruptcy & license revoked. Damn SOBs
Money Pit ???
LOL
Then I chuckled and wondered how long they're going to keep those ugly solar panels. They don't work up here. All the locals who had them a decade ago finally got rid of them.
Those modern un-green solar panels are so out of place in the middle of God's country. They look so un-environmental. There should be a law against them.
Rats are deserting the cities and invading your neighborhoods.
Foundation, plumbing, electrical, roof, windows, insulation, heating, and AC can eat up 100 grand in a blink.
if they were really cutting edge they would have put in a very nice normal looking, tesla roof
And driving up the property taxes. Theirs and everyone’s nearby.
Better idea: Buy an inexpensive house. And keep it that way.
Not to mention all the ghosts!

bookmark
That’s what I see here in the Cleveland market. Mostly folks flipping the old homes after fixing them up. Buy for under 100,00 and sell for half a million or more.
The neighborhood...? Quite sketchy. Over the summer I wondered if they’d be victims of the BLM tyranny groups.
bmp
This is one couple. There are no stats to back up the headline. In CT New Yorkers are literally buying home’s fully furnished. Paying well over asking price. I’m wondering how they found this couple.
The large ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’ sign in the front yard says it all.
Sounds wonderful. Enjoy.
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.