> Assume it didn't: it would mean two identical houses right next to each other would have vastly different prices depending on when they were built.
They kinda do, in many places? Around here, past a certain age, your house is basically a tear-down, where it's a liability over just having an empty lot. Or if you really want to save the guts it's still getting torn down to the studs for new wiring/plumbing/insulation.
> Around here, past a certain age, your house is basically a tear-down, where it's a liability over just having an empty lot.
Where is around here and what that certain age? That's wild to me.
Of course you can ruin a house to the point it is best to tear it down. Even a 5 year old house could get there with enough gross neglect.
But assuming any kind of occupancy and minimal maintenance, that's not normal at all. Any house will outlive you and your grandkids and great-grandkids with any kind of reasonable care.
Here's a house over a century old, totally not a tear down. Nothing special about this one, just the first hit I found in zillow:
Maybe the NorCal climate is too mellow and houses last more? Ok then, let's look at Boston, certainly a rough climate. Here, a house built in 1880, totally not a tear down:
Maybe Boston is too rich, so they spend a lot on house maintenance? Ok let's look at, dunno, Pittsburgh (rough climate again). Here's another 1920 house, looks beautiful to me, definitely not a tear down:
I'm in Calgary, Canada, but I don't expect it's a particular outlier in North America on this front.
Houses become tear-downs mostly based on economic viability and comfort, not based on their habitability. I lived for ~10 years in a desirable inner-city neighbourhood that was originally bungalows from the 1960s. In the time I was there close to 50% of the bungalows were torn down (or trucked off - last I checked the value of the physical home being trucked off was in the $10k range after costs) and rebuilt with either larger homes or denser units.
My landlord bought a second bungalow in the area and did a full reno, keeping the guts, and by his math he was basically break-even per sq ft over tearing it down and building bigger/denser.
To your original point, the 1960s bungalows and the 2010s homes (or 1960s home renovated to modern standards) do have vastly different prices. Modern builds are much better from so many perspectives - electrical, plumbing, layout, lighting, insulation, heating/cooling, air quality, fire resistance, etc. (including ways that can't be upgraded even with a gut job - e.g. you can't upgrade from 2x4 framing to 2x6 framing for extra insulation space) - it would be deeply weird if all of those improvements made no difference to prices.
I'm not sure what you're getting at as you argue with me about maintenance and this guy about tear-downs.
Look at that Boston home for example, nearly nothing inside that home is original. Even the floors look replaced. Certainly all those windows, the siding, the roofing.
Look at the kitchen and baths, all redone in last 10 years probably.
Look at the bedrooms - mini splits, also probably done in last 10 years. You can probably assume a pretty good gut reno to get that all done, at which time they may have gone all the way to the studs and done electrical & plumbing.
I have friends who live in 100+ year old apartment buildings that once you reach a certain project size you might as well go down to the studs because the old fuse box electric isn't up to modern requirements and god knows what's in the pipes.
Do you think the furnace/boiler are original?
That $1.2M home may have had $400k of renovation work in the last decade, depending on how much was done all at once. My point was that "reasonable care" involves a lot of 5-figure projects over the years, or a giant 6-figure project per lifetime.
They kinda do, in many places? Around here, past a certain age, your house is basically a tear-down, where it's a liability over just having an empty lot. Or if you really want to save the guts it's still getting torn down to the studs for new wiring/plumbing/insulation.