• ramble81@lemmy.zip
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        4 months ago

        I know it’s still cheaper but don’t forget to factor in labor cost to build it. That being said it would be interesting to see what the differential is.

        • LaLuzDelSol
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          4 months ago

          Also don’t forget the land itself! That can be a huge cost depending on where the house is.

        • ikidd
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          4 months ago

          Figure $250-$350 /sf current building costs, depending on finishes. So better part of a million.

          • ramble81@lemmy.zip
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            4 months ago

            Tell me you’re from the US without telling me you’re from the US. In Europe a 100 year old house isn’t uncommon and isn’t even close to needing to be demolished.

              • LifeInMultipleChoice
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                4 months ago

                Yeah, 60-80 years is average for the survival of a wooden framed house if it is taken care of. Yes some will last till 200, but for every 1 that does, hundreds have been torn down.

          • GreenKnight23
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            4 months ago

            I live in a 121 year old house. it’s doing ok.

            the only problems I have right now is the below sub par contractors that come to work on it.

            any work I’ve had done I have had to go back and repair damages because they did it cheaply or incorrectly.

            point is, it’s not the house that’s wrong, it’s the talent is lacking.

          • Horsey
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            4 months ago

            If it’s poorly made… there are houses in Europe that have been continuously owned longer than the USA has existed.

          • shalafi
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            4 months ago

            I was looking at a 1920s house 15 years ago. Owner said the wood had become so hard over the years he had to buy special drill bits to work on it and nails were mostly out of the question.

            Lived in a 100-yo house in college. It would have been nice if the landlord was dumb to start with then went senile. Looked online last year and it’s still there and all cleaned up!

            I think it was around $30K. That hood exploded and now that house is probably north of $400,000.

          • Fredselfish
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            4 months ago

            Fuck you the home I live in is over 100 years old.

    • shalafi
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      4 months ago

      Came to say that’s not a Sears house! Boy was I wrong.

    • Fredselfish
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      4 months ago

      I wish we could get all the blueprints for these houses and recreate this business. That’s crazy that is a Sears home.

    • nandeEbisu
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      4 months ago

      I know they have these, there’s a house in my old neighborhood that was a sears mail order house, but its a modest sized ranch. Not a 10 room colonial.

  • partial_accumen
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    4 months ago

    Its not quite “getting it in the mail”, but getting a complete house plan and kit of materials is still around today. You pay one price and have it delivered to your piece of land:

    source
    (if prices aren’t showing up for you select a store in the upper left corner of the screen, I just picked a random store for these screenshots to get the prices to populate)

  • GorGor@startrek.website
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    4 months ago

    My family home started off as a catalog house (not sears). My dad built it when I was 2. They, now I, have continued to change and add on to it over 45 years.

  • the_q@lemmy.zip
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    4 months ago

    And those houses now sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars because bullshit.

    • sunbrrnslapper
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      4 months ago

      Do you think marriages were ruined by assembling a Sears house too? 😉

      • shalafi
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        4 months ago

        Ex-wife when I went to fuck with the computer rack, “Is this going to involve a bunch of screaming and cussing? If so I’m going to the bedroom.”

        “It’ll also involve blood.”

    • Bahnd Rollard
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      4 months ago

      IKEA Släkt: contains several tons of particle board, ~2.5k wooden pegs, 500 pages of pictured, wordless instructions, and one allen wrench.

  • Treczoks
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    4 months ago

    Keep in mind that such a house was very affordable, too.