Checking for "good bones" when buying

The layout has nothing to do with good bones. Any builder or carpenter can knock are few walls out to re arrange the layout.

Goodbones like many have mentioned is the frame is solid, house is level and not termite ridden and the foundations are not sinking.

 

Arguing?

That means they agree.

 

Whatever. I'm not arguing over the meanings of words, I'm proving useful information to a genuine poster asking a genuine question. At the same time I am correcting a post that is clearly wrong. If you tell the original poster, who is looking for houses with 'good bones' that good bones is merely a 'good frame', you have done them a disservice and created another misinformed buyer.

Fancy me having to explain simple things like this to you. It's ridiculous really.

 

- Double brick and tile.
- load bearing wall.

'nuff said really.

 

I disagree. Sometimes its not easy to change layout therefore layout is really important. I saw a place in a good suburb, nice neighbourhood but this house itself had a bedroom in the middle of the house. Even by knocking out walls there would have been no easy way to improve it because the ceiling heights in the adjoining rooms were at different heights. The only way to really get good flow/good functional layout would be to knock down the house or change the outer rooms.... too difficult to change.

Good bones is just a structurally sound house that may only have some simple cosmetic issues.
A house with good bones has good sized rooms and good layout. That's how I have always accepted/understood good bones to be.

My parents extended their first house to have a slightly strange layout.... 2 bedrooms coming off the lounge... definitely not to everybody's taste. And people don't like rabbit warrens. Simple, easy, logical is what you want...

 

My post was meant for weatherboard timber frame.

Also load bearing wall is quite easy to take out through a LVL in.

 

We will agree to disagree then

 

Well my dad could beat up your dad!

 

It did get a big fighty in here didn't it.

 

This post got me thinking about houses with bad layouts that are easy to fix vs houses with bad layouts that are difficult/prohibitively expensive to fix. That is something for @JRS to take into consideration when looking for houses with "good bones".

Sometimes all it takes to fix a bad layout is to blow out a wall or two and this can be feasible, even with load bearing walls, as pointed out above.

On the other hand, some layouts are not so simple to fix. A couple of weekends ago, I inspected a brick veneer house in Perth with a very awkward layout. One issue could have been addressed by blowing out a wall between the kitchen and lounge - feasible. The other issue was the location of the laundry, which was very poor resulting in the laundry needing to be moved. The problem is there is nowhere to move it to. To move the laundry would involve extending the house. I would consider any house that needs an extension in order to rectify issues with the layout does not have “good bones”.

Houses with good layouts that just need cosmetic work probably don’t have the margin you are looking for.

It would be ideal if you could find a house that:-
- presents poorly cosmetically
- has an awkward layout that can be easily rectified
- is otherwise structurally sound

The awkward layout will put off some buyers, leaving you room to negotiate but you will add value by improving the layout. Win-win for you