Assessment/Questions about buying a house

Can they be torn down? Then plaster and brick the free wall? The demolition is not expensive. If it can be done without asbestos disposal, it will be finished for 10-12. Karsten

Do I understand correctly: it is about two adjacent buildings, or one with an extension, and the years of construction are 1900 (semi-detached house) and 2003?

Semi-detached houses have two halves. Does the other half still exist (just owned by someone else, and that should remain the case) or is there only one half left, and an extension was added to it in 2003?

Then I would wonder how, if one half was ready for demolition, the other is still in good condition (?)

hab gelesen, man sollte einen öffentl. Bestellten Sachverständigen für sowas nutzen.

"Öffentlich bestellt" means for an expert that their expertise had to be proven, so it's not just their Aunt Trude saying the guy knows his stuff. Without the addition, anyone could claim that about themselves.

So, there are 2 semi-detached houses, in one the neighbors live, the other belongs to the house and is currently unoccupied/uninhabitable. I can’t quite remember the exact story of who exactly lived there, but definitely the relatives of the builders from 2003.

I don’t know what the neighbors’ situation is like. As I said, the current owner said he didn’t buy any crap back then and the substance is good. He wanted to renovate it if the separation hadn’t happened. There were also pictures of him and his future ex-wife on Facebook in 2016 and then nothing more. But whether and what the story was is... well. I don’t want to ask him why he sold the place so cheaply.

Simply tearing it down isn’t possible for 2 reasons, the other semi-detached house is still being used and the heating of the new house is in the basement of the old one. Although you could also just install a new gas boiler in the large storage room.

So: when the extension was built in 2003, it must have been clarified how the house from 1900 was constructed (at least where the extension was attached) – or does the new building stand completely "beside" as an independent third "half"?

What was built around 1900 was built quite solidly. Stone exterior walls were common, often with facing facades on the street side. Wooden beam ceilings, and from that alone very light interior walls wherever they did not stand on each other. Basement floors usually made of rammed earth / rammed concrete, and toilets were not yet commonly integrated. Usually, they were brought into the house in the 1960s (or into the apartment if previously "on the half-landing"), and at some point there were also new pipes (instead of lead / cast iron) and new electrical systems (wires no longer fabric-covered, grounded plugs).

It can be said quite certainly of a house from this era that essential things (the aforementioned, and for example windows) were modernized, but the exterior walls will be far from today's thermal insulation standards. Unfinished attics generally have roofs, where what was not broken is already old. The roof structure and tiles may still be serviceable, but energetically the "time jump" here is the most severe.

As a rule of thumb, what remains from this time has also been maintained. Mind you, usually without improvement to the energy standard, but in good condition. Heating systems may also have been modernized so long ago that investments are due again.

So: when the extension was built in 2003, it must have been clarified how the house from 1900 was constructed (at least where the extension was attached) – or is the new build as a separate third "half" completely "beside" it?

.

Hello,

the house itself stands independently, but wall to wall. On Friday I have another appointment and will bring along a friend who has renovated his entire house himself and is also a craftsman. If he also gives his okay, the plan is to bring in an expert again.

Do you have any tips from your side on what I should specifically ask or what I should pay attention to? I already told him to show me all relevant documents. So land register, ancillary costs, modernizations, etc....

Regards

So as long as it is solidly built, I assume it has good substance. But there are major cost drivers. They are (not listed hierarchically):

[Nasser Keller]
[Dachstuhl/Eindeckung]
[Fenster]
[Elektrik]
[Wasser/Abwasser]
[Heizung/Heizkörper] (?)

For these alone, you can easily invest €100,000 without expensive items. Then comes the insulation. The roof can be done as a DIY project, as long as the roof itself is still good, which is cheap. The facade also costs a good €15,000, since only two sides. You can do the basement ceiling yourself.

If the screed needs to be redone and the bathrooms renovated as well, you easily end up with €150,000 in renovation costs. On top of that, painter work, flooring, and kitchen. Also, you don’t move into a [2003] with old carpet and old wallpaper.

This is the extreme case now, prices vary by region ±10%.

And the bad thing is: you probably shouldn’t do the cost drivers yourself if you’re not a professional.

Just be aware of that.

Water pipes from the ’60s tend to clog. It’s unpleasant to break everything open in a new bathroom. Electrical wiring from 1960 is often far from up-to-date. Windows from 1980 have a terrible U-value. The roof is often still good. Basement questionable.

These are my experiences after two renovations of old buildings from the ’60s.