We consider to buy old house(1950). Would it require a lot of maintanence?

[Anonymous]

Does things break a lot in house constructed in 1950. It's a brick house. ALso it has small windows, some in s brick wall, some in the roof? How difficult is to make them bigger? How much could it cost in New Jersey? We are not very handy and used to live in rented apartment, where everything is taken care of. We wanted to buy a condo at first, but now we have doubts maybe house is better? But we have no idea how difficult and how expensive it is to maintain an old house. Any advice is welcome. Also want to know how much people spent on average to take care of the lawn, snow, leaves?

[Anonymous]

It could OR it could be better and cheaper than a new house. 50 is kind of the range where the original stuff either has worn out and been recently replaced OR that it's about to go. What goes is the plumbing and electrical outlets and switches. Usually, the driveway, kitchen and appliances, roof and furnace or entire HVAC system have been replaced.

- As I noted above, you want to be careful with any home, new or old. New homes are built much more cheaply and many are riddled with short-cuts. Your Realtor should be experienced in addressing your needs and getting dates of all renovations and what is original.

- Windows I wouldn't get too crazy with, it's only slightly worse with brick. But, any kind of construction has no problem going to a longer or closer to the floor window, it's going wider and/or higher that requires re-structuring. $300 per replacement window can easily bloom to $1000+.