Considering putting offer on a house and need input with its flaws

October 24, 2015 7:52 AM

Would outdoor laundry and not having the whole house be under central AC be deal breakers for most home buyers?

I've been house searching for a while and have let some good ones slip away by overthinking it bc it's a total sellers market here and good houses go under contract the very next day it's listed. My problem is that the area I'm looking in has older homes built in the 1950's and 60's and so it took a while to get used to or accept some of their flaws or quirkiness (tiny closets, bedrooms and baths are common) and to come to accept that, unlike new builds, every older home has some sort of flaw. I just need help to figure out whether a particular flaw should be a deal breaker or not bc I'm afraid of regretting a house purchase down the line and resale value is very important to me.

I really like the layout of the house and the kitchen is amazing! I have 2 concerns, (1) the laundry closet which is located outside to the left of the carport so you have to go outside to do laundry and if you park your car in the carport you can't even get to the laundry so even if I enclose the carport and make it into a garage it'd still have that issue of not easily getting to the laundry with a car parked inside.

The second concern is that the house has both central AC and ductless mini split wall unit. The living room and master bedroom (additions to the house) don't have central AC and has ductless wall unit instead while the rest of the house has central AC. How would this affect utility bill? How efficient or effective are these ductless mini split units at heating and cooling? What impact would they have on air quality or humidity? I live in Florida so it gets really humid. I've always had central AC so know nothing about these wall units.

Would the flaws listed above be considered deal breakers to you? If so how much do U think it'd cost to fix if that's even possible. I will be living in the house but consider it an investment so I don't want to buy a house with bad resale value.

posted by CheeseAndRice to Home & Garden (21 answers total)

After 20+ years of apartment living, not having to go outdoors to do laundry is the best thing about home ownership.
posted by shiny blue object at 8:22 AM on October 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

The laundry would be a deal breaker for me. Heck I hate lugging my laundry down 2 flights of stairs in my apartment building and I've promised myself my next place will have laundry in the apartment. That is going to get real old real quick.

I won't speak to AC as I'm a Midwesterner unfamiliar with Florida's climate.
posted by Aranquis at 8:32 AM on October 24, 2015

Ductless AC is awesome, we installed it in the bedrooms of our 1840 Victorian and they cooled down the entire house.

You could not pay me money to live in a house where I'd have to go OUTSIDE to do the laundry. Any way to potentially move the washer/dryer inside? Even a basement would be better.
posted by lydhre at 8:34 AM on October 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

I have friends who had that carport laundry. They gave up their pantry and had it plumbed to move the W/D inside. On the other hand, I had a back-of-the-garage utility room for 8 years, and the layout meant I could carry laundry straight from my bedroom through the back yard to it, or take stuff through the house/kitchen/garage, and I didn't mind. It was a really big room with space to work/fold/etc but it wasn't air conditioned so it was difficult to do laundry during the day in Texas summers.

I actually kind of dig the idea of central + bedroom split, but we don't have kids and we now live in California where you don't need much air conditioning. In fact ours is not that great at cooling the house and we use a portable in the bedroom so we can sleep in comfort. The rest of the day is tolerable. I could see the upside of not having to cool the bedroom all day (just close the door) and only cooling it at night.

I have had the bedroom problem in a number of houses, where it doesn't get the best of the Central AC and I have to augment or suffer. So maybe that's a plus in the end.

Pretty much all of Asia uses those split units residentially, and you're generally dealing with a humid sub-tropical climate there.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:35 AM on October 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

It looks like a very nice house outside of the laundry issue. From what I can tell, it looks like a flipper bought the house and rehabbed it. I would want to make sure everything was done well. You might want to consider asking the seller if (s)he can move the laundry room indoors and work that into the purchase price. Could you make an offer contingent on having the laundry room indoors or asking for a credit at closing to move it indoors?

I'm not that knowledgeable about the AC, but it might be nice in terms of cost savings not to have to cool the entire house at night when you aren't using the living space. For me, it would depend on the aesthetics of the AC units in the bedrooms. I dislike the look of AC units in windows or sitting out on the floor somewhere.
posted by parakeetdog at 8:44 AM on October 24, 2015

What does the door in the middle of the kitchen lead to?

In terms of the AC split, I see that as a net positive. Can cool different parts of the house and some more efficiently. In terms of the carport laundry, as a buyer, it wouldn't be a deal breaker just because of where it is, but it would be a function of how often I am doing laundry. If I had a young family where I was doing laundry 5 times a week to keep up, I would not even consider that. If I was at a stage where I was doing laundry once a week, sure, outside is ok.
posted by AugustWest at 9:30 AM on October 24, 2015

I'm not sure the exterior washer/dryer is that big of a deal. Here in southern CA, many of the apartment buildings have private washers and dryers for every unit, but they're in a closet on the balcony, hence walking outside to do it. This is one of those ”ignore the answers that come from snow country" questions. If you really hate it, down the line you could consider a reno to add access from indoors.
posted by cecic at 9:45 AM on October 24, 2015 [4 favorites]

Outside laundry is only half a dealbreaker for me, but having to move your car to do the laundry is a full dealbreaker. (And I live in California, for the record.)
posted by serelliya at 9:52 AM on October 24, 2015

I live in California and our house has the laundry room outside, attached to the garage. It would be slightly more convenient if it were in the house, but it's so much nicer than the shared one in our old apartment.
posted by kendrak at 9:53 AM on October 24, 2015

If all of the housing stock is from the same era, I would keep looking until I found one that either had well-maintained original innards, or relatively timeless updates, or renovations that were not so new that you'd be paying a premium. I would consider its very late 00s updates to be bad resale value; the kitchen is every flipper's kitchen and will date itself quickly. All of the renos are what mustard/avocado appliances were to the 70s and what beige bathtubs were to the 80s, and the exterior and interior do not mesh well at all.

But in Florida the laundry issue seems small. Almost a bonus to have the dryer not as part of the main living space. There aren't any anti-clothesline bylaws, I hope?
posted by kmennie at 10:02 AM on October 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

Neither would be a deal breaker for me.
posted by salvia at 10:39 AM on October 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

I just moved my W/D to another building on my property, to get rid of the noise and clutter - and I live in snow country. For what it's worth, it wasn't very expensive to move it.
Personally, like kmennie, I'd prefer to do any renovations myself, both so I get to choose all the details like material and colors, and because it's much cheaper. But it can be a daunting task for those who haven't tried it before.
N'thing those who like the idea of separate air-con. I recently installed a central heating system and it's amazing, the only thing I dislike is that it is not easy to regulate my bedroom separately.
posted by mumimor at 11:09 AM on October 24, 2015

Our last house had the washer in the garage. We converted a bit of the mudroom and installed a small washer and dryer. That house was on raised foundation and the total cost of getting power and water there was less than 500 bucks.

You own a house for a long time. You can purchase and move the laundry later if it bugs you.
posted by 26.2 at 1:11 PM on October 24, 2015

Neither of the things you mention would be a deal breaker. Easy to move laundry inside.

What concerns me is it was bought 6 months ago for 107,500 and is now selling for 289,000. The did a flip job on it and didn't even move the laundry?
posted by Melsky at 2:32 PM on October 24, 2015 [6 favorites]

I'm in Texas and have back porch laundry and think that it's great not having the extra heat and humidity inside the house.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 2:38 PM on October 24, 2015

I would prefer to have the laundry out of the house. I can't tolerate the sound of it, and they go on for hours. This would be a benefit for me.
posted by Vaike at 5:13 PM on October 24, 2015

FWIW, my folks live in Florida, and every house they've ever owned has had laundry in the garage, never in the house. I can imagine that outside the carport might be a little less convenient, but not so much more different than the garage. There are benefits in keeping laundry humidity out of the house. However, the wall unit AC sounds like a weird shortcut to take on the remodelling, though, and so I would share the concerns about the quality of work that was done to flip the house. Is the nature of the construction of the add-ons such that adding central AC ducting later will be impossible?
posted by amusebuche at 5:38 PM on October 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for everyone's input. I'm also concerned if the flip job was done well or not bc they also put one of those remote controlled lights in the closets rather than hire an electrician to wire the closets for light. But I guess this is something only the inspector can tell me?

To answer someone's question the door from the kitchen leads to the carport.
posted by CheeseAndRice at 6:09 PM on October 24, 2015

I strongly strongly recommend not getting an inspector to tell you that but to pay a real general contractor for a couple hours of their time to do a walkthrough of the house with you.

While there are honest inspectors, it's very hard to tell for sure if the one you pick is one of them. Because while they're going to get paid for the inspection whether it passes or fails, either one or both of the buyer/seller agents have a vested interest in it passing in a way that makes you feel all nice and safe about proceeding with the transaction, and it's worth an additional kickback to make sure it does so.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:17 PM on October 24, 2015

I'm used to having an outside laundry and it doesn't bother me. It's nice that if it ever floods, that doesn't affect the house at all, and I can do a load of laundry even if someone is sleeping inside as the noise doesn't travel much. But I've also lived in plenty of houses with the washing machine in the kitchen, so if your kitchen is big enough, you could relocate it there (you need a front loader, and you put it under the bench like a dishwasher.)

What it comes down to, though, if you are worrying about resale value, is not whether any random mefite finds it a deal breaker, but what people in your area think. Is an outside laundry or split systems common there? If so, people are used to them and will probably accept it in a house on the market. If they are really rare, of course it will give people pause, and it will lower your resale value. But right now it is ALSO probably lowering sale value, as some people will be passing it up due to these things, and so you should be able to get it at a slightly lower price than what you would if all those other buyers were also offering. So you save some money now, and lose some on resale. No big deal.
posted by lollusc at 7:44 PM on October 24, 2015

Mod note: Note: Address deleted from original post for privacy reasons.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:32 PM on November 16, 2015