Back in the day (80s to early 90s), I knew some guys that made a decent living buying crappy older homes, fixing them up, and selling them for a profit. It worked in that time and place, but I'm not convinced that it would work everywhere. Back to the OP's point, though, sure, I've seen plenty of "fixer upper" dealers that turned into nothing but a headache and a money pit for buyers. Personally, I only buy properties that in good shape. I'm too dang busy with taking care of my business to bother with that kind of thing.
It is better to buy an older house providing you are able to estimate renovation costs correctly. The biggest problem most buildings have is the foundation, after a house is constructed it will take 5+ years for the house to settle into the ground. If the house does not settle evenly, the foundation will get serious cracks, and this is extremely expensive to fix. If there are no cracks after 5 years this means the house is good. On the other hand if you do not know much about houses, you are better off to buy a new house.
I do believe it is better to buy the older homes but sometimes it is also quite expensive. I am not really sure that I would prefer the villas and modern day living that occur here. I like living in old homes.
It depends on the area I would say. If the area is really good (let's say it's a high value area), then the cost of renovating will be worth it. However, in general, I prefer to buy something a little bit newer, mainly because I don't have enough time to actually renovate the property. Also, I try not to get involved so much in the paperwork involved when you are trying to renovate a house. I would prefer that all of these things have been taken cared of before I buy a property. I've also seen a lot of cases where they think that renovating the property would actually elevate the value, but in general, it's not always the case. You end up losing more.
I believe older homes have its own merits and demerits. If you are ready to renovate the house to some extent then it is okay to buy older homes. I definitely find it really sad.
I heard a story about an old home that is like my dream come true. In some older homes in the United States there used to be small doors that were next to the man door, usually at the back of the house. The purpose of this little door was to be the place where the milk man would deliver the milk. It was called a milk chute. Well that don't happen anymore so many home owners have boarded this little door area up. It proved to be a risky area that could be broken into. A co-worker told me his brother in law bought an older home and went to change the back door. Lo and behold there was a milk chute and he decided he was just going to take it out and make the door larger. Well he pried up the bottom of the chute and there inside was a plastic bag. Inside the bag was several pieces of jewelery, some personal papers and pictures and an old revolver. This guy went back to the previous owner since the house had been owned by that family so long and asked them if they had ever misplaced some jewelry. The woman told him about a piece she had been searching for over the years that had been her mothers wedding ring and a brooch. She told him "If you found that I will pay you to return it to me because it means so much." The man told her he found much more then that and she said she didn't care she just wanted the ring and the brooch. So he gave those back to her along with the pictures and documents. The rest of the stuff in the bag was valued at over $40K. Most I found was some old wheat pennies in a duct. value $7- but hey you never know!
