Fundamental renovations on historical buildings

[Thierry Van Roy]

So I'll probably get some links to older threads, but I can't seem to find them myself for some reason.

After doing a lot of research and looking at hundreds of buildings, I seem to keep coming up with awesome deals of +1 million USD in urban centers. The financing isn't the problem and the numbers look great. Because they are capital intensive, I seem able to outmarket the competition. But here's the problem: they all concern historical buildings (I invest in Europe, ancient cities like Maastricht and Liège).

These will require a lot of renovations to get them up to speed with the new EU energy-efficient requirements and such. Paint job, roofing, isolation, windows etc. I get, but with these old buildings I fear I keep missing stuff. They are in a league of their own, one less ventured.

To give an idea of what I mean: http://i43.tinypic.com/2vdi2rm.jpg

(Yes, the entire thing.)

The payback on these costs increases exponentially when I skew the numbers ever so slightly. This has me worried. Just imagine the floors are on a wooden basis and they would all have to be reconstructed. Foundations having to be redone.

Is there anyone who has experience with old buildings of this caliber? I can start asking a million questions here, but I'm probably not even scratching the surface of my potential headache. I'm grateful for everyone's input.