1.) Most homes built before the 70s have to be nearly rebuilt to be habitable now.
2.) They have very little insulation and nearly all windows need to be replaced.
3.) They are plumbed for a single bathroom and the fixtures are primitive by modern standards.
4.) The wiring doesn't meet safety codes, and there is a severe shortage of outlets and capacity.
5.) There's a severe shortage of closet space.
6.) The vast majority max out at three bedrooms.
7.) Kitchen cabinets, counter space, and counter outlets are awful.
8.) Most are designed without ductwork for central heating and cooling.
9.) Most require exterior painting every three or four years.
10.) Prior to the 60s, attached garages were rare.
11.) In most places the tens of thousands it costs to retrofit an old house to modern expectations are a questionable investment.
12.) Solid construction and skilled carpentry are great assets, but a home requires a hell of a lot more.
13.) The deterioration of most eighty-year-old neighborhoods is another huge negative.
Detroit is full of solid, well-built houses.
I'll take a modern home built by crews of illegal mexicans any day of the week.
1.) I've mentioned the 3 homes with which I have experience: my parents' home, built in 1949; a house I rented, built in 1958; the home I currently own, built in 1948. My parents lived in CA's Central Valley; I've lived in Silicon Valley since the Carter Administration. Other than normal maintenance stuff, only the home in which I live had (has) had remodeling when I lived in each.
2.) Basically true, though the only home in which I've lived that had the windows replaced is the home in which I live.
3.) Two of the houses in which I've lived had 2 bathrooms, as built. My current home has had two additions, and each time a bathroom was part of what was added.
4.) This is true, technically true, and partly false. The "partly false" part has to do with some 1970s homes that were built with aluminum wiring. Aluminum wiring requires outlets and switches designed for use with aluminum wiring, and many such homes did not have those special outlets and fixtures. The "technically true" part has to do, largely, with the change from 2-wire (Line and Neutral) to 3-wire (L, N, and Earth Ground) systems. Older homes are not unsafe generally, wrt fire hazard or shock (except for rare situations where a tool or appliance has been wired incorrectly, has an internal fault, or is near-antique (some old TV and radio chassis are grounded to Neutral). As for "true" appliances proliferated in the 1950s-1970s, and electronic gadgetry started proliferating in the 1980s. I never experienced inconvenience in my parents' home (custom-built) or the home I rented (tract home), but that was before we had more electronic gadgetry than a microwave oven. In my present home the electronics are mainly in the 1970s- and 2000s-built parts of the home, but due to how we use the home, not availability of outlets. I think most post-WW2 construction was adequate for the proliferation of appliances, but 1970s and later electronics would have strained wiring capacity as well as the number of outlets.
5.) All three homes in which I've lived have had closets in every bedroom, plus closets near the front door and in the hallway between the bedrooms. My parents' home had an additional closet in the den, and an amazing number of built-in cabinets that could be and often were used as closets - like I said above, custom built.
6.) My parents' home had two bedrooms. The rental and this home, as built, had 3 bedrooms.
7.) My parents' home had an amazing number of kitchen cabinets, and more than adequate number of outlets - by intentional design. The rental was as-built, and the cabinets and outlets were fine. By the time I bought my current house the kitchen had already been substantially remodeled, as part of adding another 600-800 square feet on to the home. What had been the back wall of the kitchen had been opened up for access to one of the new rooms. So I don't know and won't speculate about the as-built cabinetry and outlets.
8.) True. My parents added central AC/heating to their home ~15 years after it was built. The rental didn't have it. We added AC/heating to this home about 10 years ago. One qualification to the latter two homes is that here in Silicon Valley the climate is very mild, so in any year there might be 10-20 days in which it gets uncomfortably hot.
9.) In the 40-45 years I can remember of my parents' home, I think they painted it 2 or
maybe 3 times, and it
never looked ratty or worn. I can't speak meaningfully of the rental. My family and I have lived in my current home for nearly 25 years, and we have had it painted once ... as part of adding on the rooms my MIL lived in the last several years of her life. Climate has much to do with paint durability: Silicon Valley is mild year-round; the Central Valley has hot summers.
10.) All three homes, as-built, had attached garages, with access to the garage from within the home. from what I've seen around Silicon Valley and Arizona's Valley of the Sun, attached garages were normal in post-WW2 tract homes.
11.) That depends on location - as you said - how long one lives in the home after the remodel, and how one values the use/enjoyment of the remodel.
12.) True. Setting aside the family aspect that makes a house a home, maintenance is required, and sometimes lifestyle changes over a time span of decades forces choices beyond normal maintenance.
13.) That is almost entirely a function of how well those living in such neighborhoods maintain their homes and property. Across the street from my 1948-built home are homes built in the 1960s, and within 5 minutes' walk from my home are homes built in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s (plus a few new-built homes that replaced older ones - investments, replacing homes burned down, replacing one that had been abandoned for a long time). All are well maintained.
