Why do people gut their houses?

Just curious - I have seen it on here alot where people buy an older home then completely gut it down to the studs. Do you really save alot versus buying a newer home? Seems like alot of work.

I just bought a 1950's home that is in good shape. There are a few nail pops here and there but no reason to gut and put up new sheetrock. I wonder why people gut their homes that don't seem to be in too bad of shape?

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

There are a number of reasons to gut. Its way easier to gut when running a lot of wires. Moving walls. If you are doing a ton of work and need to open a bunch of holes, you want your walls appearance to match and with old vs. new rock that may be difficult to do.

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

Well some people want a home that is to their specifications no one else's so while they could buy new, they would be setteling and would rather buy older for less and redo.

Also some areas are really pricey and people can only buy there if they buy a house that needs to be gutted...and even with the renovs it is still cheaper then it would have been new.

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

the house I want in our neighborhood would be 700,000 or maybe even 800,000 with taxes of at least 15,000. we wanted certain locations...that was not a compromise for us.

With that said, we could not afford that at the time we bought. So buying a $500,000 in my town was much more affordable as far as mortgage and taxes go. over the years, We were able to save and remodel without taking home equity loans...and our mortgage stays the same....

Message edited 9/2/2010 1:30:42 PM.

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

my brother is running into the problem of wanting a large house, on a okay plot with open floor plan. One thing he was tossing around was buying a house and just gutting it to fit the floor plan he wants because it would be cheaper then building a new house (here on LI)

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

We bought a forclosure, so we had the money to make it our own, it was also a old dated house, with the original everything in it.

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

We bought an estate that was built in 1947 and had never been renovated and gutted the entire thing!

We had to do quite a bit of electical/plumbing/heating work, and it was much easier/cheaper to do it when the walls were open. Once all the walls came down, I couldn't believe the shape that the insulation was in. It was horrendous!! There were also nests within the walls that I guess mice made from the insulation. We replaced all of that as well as put up new sheetrock. Now we have the confort of knowing exactly what is behind those walls and everything is brand new!

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

I remember a friend telling me about a house on her street that had a huge extended family living in it. It seemed that they cooked nothing but fish and the new owners had to gut the house to get the smell out.

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

- mold
- Even out walls
- removing paneling
- changing old insulation
- Moving walls

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

My house was a wreck! Down to the studs, upgraded everything. We got a 203k construction loan which helped a ton and really only went beyond what the loan was by about 6k. With the loan rolled into my mortgage, my house was still about 50k less then we were looking to spend, and now everything is new!

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

I think it's mainly people want to live in a specific area and what they want they can't find so they fix it what they want.

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

Reinsulate them, up date pluming and electrical...

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

We didn't set out to gut our house but we ended up gutting it - we did buy a fixer upper to get the house we wanted

we saw one house completely renovated that was similar to our style but not the appliances we wanted

we bought a house that we knew we could transform easily to an open floor plan - we bought a high ranch

For us - we decided to open the kitchen, and change the bathroom layouts of the guest and master, make the master bedroom largetr and make a small bedroom the master closet.

We thought we could leave the two upstairs bedrooms alone - but once we started running wire we decided it was just easier to take down all the sheet rock and update all the electrical -the house had been updated in weird ways over the year - plus one wall already needed new sheetrowck because we put larger windows in

and we put in AC and since we put in vents we pulled all the base boards that killed some of the wood floors - and the wood floors would not match the height of the kitchen because we put radiant heat under the kitchen and bathroom floors

in other words construction compounds things and and sometimes it is easier to start over instead of patch

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

we r paying almost 500K on a home that needs to be renovated. if we were to buy a new home it would be 800K in this neighborhood. we have no choice but to renovate ourselves (slowly though) bc we wanted to be in the nabe for the school district. after all is said and done, the house will have been gutted in many rooms.

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

We didn't exactly gut every room, but we did gut 80% of it (everything but two rooms). Our house was built in 1900 and while it had been updated over the years, it had not been done tastefully or with good quality materials. Even the original hardwood floors had laminate tile stuck to it so they were ruined and we had to lay new wood flooring. Basically, everything was sh!tty (roof, floors, windows, bathrooms, even the wallpaper had been glued to the sheetrock without spackle being applied first so we had to resheetrock). BUT we got exactly the style of house we wanted in the area we wanted and there was nothing else on the market at that time that even came close.

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

for us we never wanted a house where we wouldn't have to gut it. We both love to do work on the house. I come from a family where there is very little we would pay to have someone do. We do it all ourselves.

The house we bought was built in 1950 and while it was updated over the years things were just layer on top of the old. We replaced the drywall because it was easier then to spend hours taking off the layers of wallpaper. Drywall is cheap and its very easy to install yourself. While we had the walls open we were able to move lights and in the kitchen we re-did all the plumbing and electrical.

We did the majority of the work in 2 months. I worked on the house all week and DH helped on the weekends. Construction work is just plain fun for us. I didn't want to live in someone else's house....this is now completely ours.

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

We gutted the downstairs of our levitt when we were doing the dormer so new insulation could be put in the walls, all the old wiring could be removed, and new wiring installed and new plumbing could be put in. In the 40's the insulation was nothing compared to what is used today. My house is tight now....Before we could feel air coming in under the windows.

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

It made sense for us - we bought the least expensive house in our desired location and gutted/dormered it.

Re: Why do people gut their houses?

We have to gut the basement as there was old termite damage. Though contained and treated, it looks like crap and we want to make the basement a livable space with a complete bathroom.