Mrs. Left and I are contemplating acquiring a rundown 19th Century house in an urban historic preservation district and totally conserving the original exterior, fully gutting while redesigning a fully modern interior and building the whole thing as green as present technology will permit. We are working with a contractor who specializes in both green construction and historical preservation (and use of hemp building materials), while searching for a suitable property in one of the designated preservation districts of our new urban home. Several of these neighborhoods have seen a significant and sustained renaissance, interrupted, recently, only by the Great Recession, but now, seemingly, a recovery has begun. Our search focuses on neighborhoods developed between 1885 and 1905 that are registered and regulated historic preservation districts. We plan to live in the home after completion and during our retirement.
We must be nuts.
To explore just a few of the millions of reasons this is a bad idea, come out into the tall grass.
Reasons Not to do this:
1. Not much has to go wrong in order for this to become a money pit that could swallow us whole.
2. We don't have to do this. Someone else already has, and is now selling. That cost is fixed (as are the ideas about how the restoration ought to be done).
3. A lot of the social history that preservation of these districts relates to has very ugly aspects, especially with regard to matters of race, class and economic equality. Neighborhood associations, merchants and realtors don't want to think about that part of it, but such blindness makes it no less real.
4. I don't like being a vulture; it feels icky. But we may find some of the best opportunities to acquire the right property in the right neighborhood, in foreclosure. When I see a property purchased between 2002 and 2008, not sold since, now in foreclosure, selling for much less than purchased previously, it paints a pretty clear picture of a possible victim of predatory mortgage lending practices and other forms of real estate financing chicanery. Obtaining a bargain price on a desirable property under those circumstances feels very much like taking advantage of the victim, some more.
5. Projects like this do little to promote the availability of affordable housing. Gentrification often prices people out of neighborhoods that they used to be able to afford.
Reasons to do it anyway:
1. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us. We have been together almost 50 years and every time, of the many times we have moved, something outside of our interest dictated most the terms. We moved because of the military, then because of school, then new jobs, then transfers and new jobs again. Every property we ever bought was under pressure, because of the job, the timing, the school, the kids, etc. Thanks to the Obama economic boom since 2008 and the Obama Bull Market on Wall Street, we have never had more resources for a new home than now and look to be well set for retirement wherever we choose to live, knock wood. Restoring a deserving but neglected, historically significant property has been a secret dream that I hadn't allowed into the daylight until very recently when Mrs. Left seemed receptive to looking into it.
2. While we can certainly get into one of these neighborhoods and have a nice home without all the risks of this undertaking, we can't necessarily have things exactly our way if that is the direction we chose to go. We can't afford to pay full price for someone else's idea of how to rehab the property, and also gut it out to make it the way we want. Retirement offers us a chance to live as we please, more than any time before. The nature and layout of our home is intrinsic to that. Besides, while preservation and restoration has been going on for a long time in some of these neighborhoods, emphasis on green building is relatively newer and this project gives us an opportunity to try and maximize our reliance on green choices.
3. The city where we are planning this is the City of St. Louis. Along with adjoining St. Louis County and nearby Ferguson, St. Louis has more than its share of the kind of ugly social history that necessarily tarnishes any historic preservation initiative. To be honest, though, its hard to throw a rock anywhere in the U.S., without hitting someplace that has an ugly social history on matters of race and class, etc. It is the American slice of the pie of human experience and it often isn't pretty. That said, historic preservation, for me at least, has undeniable value. I have been to places where historic preservation is a matter of no concern. They are generally bleak, even at their most modern. I much prefer places that have a genuine sense of their own place, including their past. For all of its warts, St. Louis is also that kind of place, and most people, on all sides of the many great social divides in St. Louis, are honest, hardworking people of good will. I would rather be with them to help with a better future, than stay away because of a tarnished past or present.
4. Real estate isn't pretty. The poor SOB who lost the property in foreclosure isn't going to get it back just because I don't buy it. Lots of real estate sells under lots of different kinds of distress. That doesn't really make me a vulture, and if the taste of the ick gets too bad for me, I'll toast the deal with a shot of whiskey.
5. The kind of green home that I want from this project is described, in part, by NBBooks recommended post yesterday.
The Scandinavians build houses that are so well engineered and so carefully constructed that they are beyond efficient. A new Scandinavian house can keep its occupants warm from just their body heat and the heat thrown off by a pc, a few appliances, and the light bulbs in use. That's pretty damn impressive, for being only a couple hundred miles from the Arctic Circle.
Years from now, that house, with its utility bills a tiny fraction of the neighbors', will be more affordable to own and live in than the neighbors' homes. That's the best I can do.
So, I think we are probably going to do this, but we must be nuts.