I disagree. Old houses have desirable character and nicer features such as virgin growth wood flooring, wood trim, real chimneys, real dimensional lumber (back when 2x4s really were 2x4s) etc... Most houses back then were built with craftsmanship and pride meant something as as a result you have a stable house with "good bones" even if you have antiquated leaky windows or an old furnace etc... That stuff can be replaced with high efficiency heating/hvac systems, modern windows, plumbing etc... You do get disadvantages though; some people hate plaster walls, I like them even if they are a pain in the ass to cut a hole in to install an outlet for instance. Older houses can contain asbestos or lead paint but sometimes it is cheap to remediate them; removal is not always necessary and you can sometimes do it yourself. The look and feel of new construction is appalling and I can't stand it sometimes. I like old houses for the rock solid stability feel of them. I also enjoy the older styles so they are aesthetically pleasing to me too.
Old houses suck IMO. You've already listed many of the reasons. People always say "craftsmen" built those houses back in the good ol' days, but in my limited experience much of that "craft" was aesthetics. Who cares if the stairwell is meticulously carved if the foundation is all rotted out and the basement has a 2" floor slab made of substandard concrete directly on dirt and that's all now cracking to sh!t, and the basement has a 6' ceiling height and is completely uninsulated? (I live in a city with tons of homes from the 1920-1950s eras. My home is technically from the 50s, but was gutted and rebuilt as a modern home.)
Furthermore, only some older homes are built well for that time period. A lot of homes in that time period were built like garbage. As with all things, there is the whole range of good vs. bad. However, my issue with "good" is that even the good building practices of the day won't even come close to meeting modern code.
Note that you can build new houses in the style of old houses, but of course it will be expensive. I know someone who moved in an old neighbourhood full of old Victorian homes. The city said that all homes in that area had to maintain that character. So, they still tore down the old home and built a brand new one in its place, but with a custom Victorian design. Looks great, but with all the modern amenities and none of the bazillion problems all their neighbours have. Furthermore, their ongoing heating and cooling expenses would be much lower, and they don't have the ongoing renovation costs that their neighbours have to implement after-the-fact solutions for the issues plaguing their neighbours. So yeah, their up front costs were higher, but their on-going costs are lower. You pay for it either way.
BTW, why do you even care if 2x4s are 2x4? If you want better stability, use modern 2x6, and so forth. 2x6 also gives you the potential for better insulation and gives you more room to work with in general. And yeah, you won't have to deal with those totally awful lath and plaster walls in a modern home. Those plaster walls are evil, esp. if you want to install Ethernet or something in the house, as you are probably well aware given your name.
I think you sort of missed his point a little bit. You don't want a lot that you're not happy with, nor a house with a layout/sq footage that you're not happy with. But, if the entire neighborhood has houses with granite counter tops and nice kitchen cabinets, and you buy a house of comparable size with laminate counter tops & cheaper cabinets, then with a little remodeling to get the house the way you want it, you can easily raise the value of your house. E.g., let's say you're in a neighborhood of $250k houses, but there's a house that hasn't been updated at all in 40 years. You might be able to get it for $190k, put 30k into it, and have a house that's now worth $250k. But, if you buy the $250k house and put 30k into it to get it the way you like it, you'll be lucky if you can get $260k for in that neighborhood.
That may or may not be true.
Just a note though that where I live (Toronto), $190000 will get you a small condo. Crappy houses
start at around $400000 unless you look in a terrible area. In some of the higher end areas, crappy houses start at $600000, and in the expensive areas, they start at $800000+. These prices are for tear downs.
The other problem is that unless you have an in with contractors, or you can do the work yourself, often times $30000 isn't going to get you very far. This is esp. true now because construction is doing well, so all the good tradesmen are working a lot already. I know many who won't even talk to you if the job is projected to be less than $15000. And $15000 would be a single bathroom reno, albeit an upscale one.
I had considered what you suggested, but in the end I realized that it wouldn't actually save me much money given the current situation, but it would cost me a lot in terms of aggravation.
BTW, my basement was finished, but when I bought the house I knew I would eventually renovate it because the basement was done poorly. A few years later I did renovate, and it ended up costing me more than I expected because of some unforeseen expenses, and partially because I decided to put in some expensive features. However, I did factor in that it would cost me a lot more than an initial estimate, so I was OK with that. However, the amount of aggravation it caused was a bit of a surprise to me. I knew it would be aggravating, but didn't realize just how much. To reference the first part of this post again, it did re-emphasize how getting an old home can be so problematic. We had several costs that were the direct result of problems with the initial build from the 50s. Oh and it was interesting to discover empty booze bottles under the floor slab when we dug part of it up to install new sewer lines. I guess those craftsmen really enjoyed their workdays back then.
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