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Nope, typical house I rehab is right around 100 years old, some are only 50, oldest so far was about 130.

I have been in houses where the dog crap was literally 3 feet tall piles. I have been in houses where literally NOTHING and I do mean NOTHING had been done to the house in over 50 years. I have been in homes where they had to be smoking easily 5-7 packs a day in them for years... where the walls are literally a tan/beige and honestly if you didn't know better would think that's the color they were painted, until you pull down a picture and find nice antique white square behind them. I have watched walls suck up coat after coat of primer and paint with little effect and I am not talking cheap no name paint either, I'm talking the ultra hide brand names.

Believe me, before I started fixing up houses I didn't know houses like this existed, let alone were occupied. I am telling you a not uncommon smokers house in this area, in my experience, you are looking at MIMIMAL of 5 coats to get the walls where you can no longer make out where the pictures used to be... 2 primer + 3 paint. In some of the worst I have done, its well above that.

This is a market where people will literally live their entire lives in a house... just talked to soemone the other day, their aunt had lived in the house since she was 14 years old, she just died in her 80s.. her parents bought the house, and when they passed she just kept living there.... and that is NOT an uncommon story here. Where the national average home turnover may be something like 2.8 years... here in this town the average is way way higher.

Finding homes with the same owner for 20-30-40 and 50 years is not unheard of.

My mother bougth her home it was in that condition, old woman living there smoker, took 5 coats to get walls a clean white... my brother bought his house, again 5 coats to get the homes white, and neither of these were incredibly old homes, they were both build in the 50s time frame. And neither of them were ones I'd classify as "bad" in my experience.

My experience is if you get a serious smokers house, expect 4-5 coats to get it blended clean... if its really bad, even more. NEVER have I been able to walk into a smokers home and slap 1-2 coats and get a clean wall, ever.

Well, HamiltonJay...

Nana is 101 (102 in December). She was born in a magnificent but small Victorian house in Queens, NY. She has smoked in that house for literally 80 years. When she was a girl, the two fireplaces heated the structure, and when I was a girl, the house was still heated with a coal furnace.

The house contains pocket doors, leaded glass, marble-fronted fireplaces, octagonal rooms, front and back stairs, two clawfoot tubs, ceiling medallians and dentil mouldings.

Anything that should be white is WHITE. I know, because I clean them twice a year when we all head over there for spring and fall cleaning. The house is immaculate.

When she dies, the house will be sold. We will NOT get what it is worth and it has absolutely nothing to do with smoking. The fact is, Nana's house is in one of the very crappiest (and most dangerous) neighborhoods in New York City. I wish to God I could jack the damned thing up and move it to a decent neighborhood. If I could do that...we would get top dollar for it, no doubt about it. As it is now, though, we will get about $450K for it, and somebody will come in and rip all that lovely woodwork and plaster down in order to convert the house into illegal apartments whick will soon hold approximately 25 illegal aliens. I plan to call some experts in to carefully remove the beautiful things before it even goes on the market. No sense letting them go to waste -- I'll use the pocket doors, etc. in my own home. The new owners won't give a rat's clymer about antique ceiling medallions, so the price will be the same.

It seems to me that you are a shrewd businessman. You seek out properties that are in need of repair, you fix them up, and you sell them for a good profit. Bravo! That's the American Way. Try coming to a neighborhood like Douglas Manor in New York City (that's where I grew up). I guarantee that you will pay a king's ransom for even the smallest, most-in-need-of-TLC house. Why? Because the houses are one-of-a-kind. They are old. They are beautiful. And they have that most important of attributes: location, location, location.

Regards,