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| Best of Both Worlds: The New Old House |
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(August 11, 2006) -- In the Northeast, home buyers prefer the architecture of older homes, but they do not want to deal with creaky floors, small rooms, old wiring, and other traits of residences that have been around for some time.
Rather than make renovations, they are flocking to "new old houses" that are built new but with historic details such as reclaimed flooring from old dwellings, vintage cabinet work, and back porches.
"These buyers want the charm on the exterior, but the creature comforts on the inside: an open layout, central air, nice bathrooms," says Margaret Muir, broker with William Pitt Sotheby's International Realty.
Country Living magazine contributing editor and interior designer Randy Florke has found success in this niche, selling kit homes that resemble old Nebraska farmhouses.
Florke has received 5,200 requests for the kit houses, priced from $125,000 to $300,000, since he began marketing them in 2004.
There is even a new quarterly magazine, New Old House, that focuses on this market segment. "Our market research told us that there's a real craving for a not-cookie-cutter house that has character and texture and is based on a traditional vocabulary that functions new," says editor Nancy Berry.
Source: New York Times , Penelope Green (08/10/06) |
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