Will Our New Construction Stand The Test Of Time?

When I am showing some newer homes, I often wonder, will they be able to outlast the 30-year mortgages being used to pay for them?  

It seems that every time I pick up a paper, there is a story about some new building material that sort of flopped.  Then I see siding that was put on strangely, windows that don't quite look right, and don't get me started on plastic plumbing.

Still, there seem to be a lot of home inspectors and even lenders who are wary of the homes that tend to be in my market area - mostly built between about 1750 and 1940.  

A lender whose underwriter was somewhere in the midwest balked at approving a mortgage on a property built in 1914, then restored by one of the city's best contractors.  "But it's so old," he whined!

And I have my heart in my mouth at every home inspection, depending on who's doing it.  There are what I call the New House Guys who point out all of the things that wouldn't pass code today - picking apart the roof, wiring, plumbing and whatever else they can think of.  

Yes, they have staircases that are a little tilty - and not just up and down like they are supposed ot be.  And the floors sometimes creak a little, unless they are the wide plank types we often find, held together with wood pegs.  Some of the cellars have mice and spiders instead of family rooms and media centers , and regardless of what's on the Federal Lead Paint disclosure form, we can pretty much promise our buyers that they can count on lead paint someplace in the house.

At the same time, these places are supported with heavy wood beams.  The foundations are strong and thick.  The floors are real wood, and it's more than a half-inch thick!  The walls are plaster.  These places are old, but they have great bones! 

I think of some of the places I've stayed in European cities.  I used to visit with a friend whose funky apartment on Rue des Ecoles in Paris was built just after the Middle Ages.  The place will be around for another several centuries!  And then look at the buildings in London that survived the air raids during the Second World War. 

Then go look in some of the newer subdivisions with homes unable to withstand months of neglect following a foreclosure!  Between burst pipes, leaking roofs, moldy walls, bugs and squatters, a lot of these places are just not going to make it!  And even the homes that are well cared-for are going to have challenges in their war against gravity.

Time will tell!