Buying Older Homes in and around Columbia SC

If you want a house with character - perhaps even a history of its own - consider an older Columbia SC home. Middle-aged houses often reflect the love and care that have been lavished on them through such owner-added touches as crown moldings, carved fireplace mantels and built-in bookcases.

From time to time there are beautiful older homes available in Chapin, Prosperity, Gilbert, and Lexington. In Columbia older homes are more common in the Shandon area.

Finding the Perfect Old Home in the Columbia area

Often old homes are also found in neighborhoods that present a more varied environment using a broader range of architectural styles, as well as a range of colors and texture of materials. Mature trees, established lawns and years of gardening often add much to the feel of a community.

Disadvantages of Old Homes

With older homes, however, come older floor plans that may not fit into today's lifestyles. Traffic flow may not be convenient, master bedrooms may be small, closets almost non-existent, and kitchens and baths outdated. If you think remodeling costs will make the house the most expensive home in the neighborhood, keep looking or you may lose money in the long run. Your repair bills will most likely be higher, at least in the beginning years of ownership. And remember that old homes are unpredictable - you never know when the roof, furnace or water heater will need replacing.

Ask Hugh and Carol Ryall, Earth Available Realty, Inc., about old homes in South Carolina.

This Home Buying Tip was excerpted from:

Kiplinger's Buying & Selling A Home, by The Staff of Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Kiplinger Books, 1996.

ISBN 081292780X

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