High maintenance costs.

[Jose N.]

What are the options to help mitigate maintenance costs. These vintage Detroit homes are lovely but they sure are higher maintenance due to their age. Service warranties? A recommend contractor? Any experienced advice would help and be greatly appreciated.

[Stuart Udis]

@Jose N. Some good advice shared on how to mitigate the cost obstacles you are facing but I am afraid what you perceive as high costs are actually normal costs associated with single family homes of the vintage you purchased. I am not personally familiar with Detroit housing outside of what I observe in these forums but from what I gather these homes are acquired at relatively low price points. Single family homes regardless of market  are very inefficient to operate to begin with but the lower price point homes are disproportionately impacted by ordinary upkeep maintenance, repairs and cap ex because they struggle to absorb these costs (some of which are fixed or close to fixed regardless of whether this is  $100,000 house or $300,000 house). This is why you see so many continue to utilize band-aid fixes rather than invest in Cap Ex repairs. 

The hope is the homes appreciate to the extent the cap ex repairs can be absorbed but until that event occurs operating these homes will remain challenging. Philadelphia, which is where I invest has a number of neighborhoods with similarly priced housing where its difficult to operate SFH's and even multi's for the same reason. This is one of the most overlooked issues with SFH's in lower price point areas.