100+ year old properties

[Jon Coleman]

I am going to look at a couple properties in the Riverwest/Harambee neighborhoods this week that were built prior to 1900.  It seems that there is no shortage of properties over 100 years old in the Milwaukee area and I'm interested to know what experiences BP members have had with them.

Where do you tend to have the biggest issues with properties this old (foundation, plumbing, electrical, etc.)? For CapEx, do you use any rough estimates/formulas or do you go into detail assessing the condition/cost of all major parts of the property? Thanks!

[Marcus Auerbach]

Structural foundation and basement wall issues are NOT very common with 100 year old homes in Milwaukee. The basements were had-dug and therefore shallow, the shorter the wall, the less lateral soil pressure. Many were built without drain tile and without an electric sump pump (did not exist in 1920). 

These issues are a lot more common with homes built after WW2 in the 1950s and 60s - the basements were machine dug and deeper, which allows for more force from expansive (clay) soilds. They usually backfilled with the spoils (today we backfill with stone) and they expand when wet, even more under frost, and push on the walls. Bracing is a good solution, will cost a little over $100 per linear foor of wall length. Once a wall has developed a long horizontal crack and is bowing in significantly the pressure has to be relieved on the outside by excavating the soil all the way down, then popping the wall back out so it is staright, waterprooving on the outside and backfilling with stone. Often times stoops, trees or gaslines are in the way. This makes it expensive, up to 25k.

A very common issue with 1920 properties is poor surface water management - gutters often drain right next or between homes built within 3 feet of each other, causing the basements to stay damp and contributing to the deteriation of the block or worse brick. Relativley easy to adress if you have the space to do so.

Cost wise the biggest issue with 1920s homes is that they are all custom built on site with a huge amount of architectual details inside and outside. You can't just go to Home Depot and buy a door, it will not fit.

The exterior envelope is worth about $50,000: that's a new roof, new siding and new windows. Plus driveway, garage and old trees if needed. 

The inside is usually about $25,000 per unit, that includes kitchen, bath, flooring, paint, fixtures etc. Mechanicals can be another 20k, new HAVC is abot 5k per unit, the rest is electrical (rewire is labor intense and causes a lot of damage to the plaster walls) and plumbing (fairly simple, as bathrooms are stacked. A new sewer lateral can cost you about 6-12k, but that is a rare occurance.