Quote:
Originally Posted by David70
I am surprised at the hassles and timelines. House near me had a fire. New owner closed on the house on 12/22/2020, house has been removed, lot cleared, footers are being poured and house is listed. Maybe because there was already a house on the lot but with it being over 100 years old it didn't meet a huge number of new regulations. Maybe partly because it is a builder but lot is narrow, house is far from standard.
I am almost through with a complete reno (all interior walls removed on 3 story house, and new beams added to open kitchen/living/dining room, new porch, deck, roof, not much remained) and had to get architecture drawings approved, electric, plumbing permits but none of the permits took over about 3 weeks (this was almost a year ago). For any inspections they take less than a week to show up.
Based on what you are going through I have to believe it is your city's issue but surprised it doesn't push most to renovating existing houses.
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I think local specifics play a lot into this. Many people DO elect to renovate and you are 100% correct that in doing so you avoid all the BS we are facing. You dont have to arbitrarily widen your driveway by 10 feet just to meet a 2019 county road code. You dont have to run new utilities. No new foundation or costly excavation. In Seattle, you can literally demolish the entire house, so long as you save 1 wall, any wall, it's considered a "renovation" and not a new build.
But here's the kicker, we want a nice piece of property, wooded, in a nice area outside Seattle. There's a dumpy little 2 bed, 1 bath on a nice lot near the property we are buying. Prime tear down or "remodel" candidate. it's listed for just under $800k and will likely bid up to and sell for $900k. There's not a lot of meat left on the bone by the time you've spent damn near $1M just to buy the shitty house on a nice lot.