@Gilda L. Sauceda the common perception that a new property will always have less headaches than an older property is NOT always correct. I have experience with both older and newer properties; including early 1900s, 1960s, and 2000s. One of my newest properties has presented the most problems BY FAR.
Why? A new property is un-tested, and as the new owner, YOU will be the "guinea pig" dealing with the "growing pains" that may come with a new property. On the other hand, an older property--if it has been properly maintained--has already gone through those "growing pains", and someone else has dealt with those issues (again, assuming it has been well maintained). With an older property, if the previous owners have NOT dealt with the issues, then those issues are often readily visible (for instance, if the house had structural issues that were not resolved, the sagging will often be visible on a 50+ year old house, but may not be visible on a 10 year old house).
Here's a real-life example: I bought a new property; a very nice and spacious place with cathedral ceilings and some nice amenities. Tenants moved in and are loving the place until about a month into it when the finished basement floods. There were bedrooms in the finished basement that the tenants needed to use, so the tenants were displaced and had to find new housing (and I lost all the rent income). The reason for the flooding? The slab had been poured on bare dirt instead of gravel (major code violation), and the slab was poured too low to the water table--so, when it rained, the water table would rise, and water would leak into the basement from underneath the slab. So, now I've gone from a cashflowing property to a property that's costing me a mortgage payment every month and needs over $50k of work (the only way to fix the problem was to demo all of the flood damaged drywall, cabinetry, and trim, jackhammer through the slab, excavate and remove over 5 truckloads of concrete and clay (by hand), install and plumb an industrial level sump and irrigation system, backfill it with rock (by hand), re-pour the slab, and re-finish everything.
How is this relevant to your question? Well, if that property had been, say, 20 or 30+ years old, other owners would have encountered the flooding problem--and would have either dealt with the problem, or the damage from the problem probably would have been readily apparent when I viewed the property. But, instead, it was a new house, and no flooding had occurred before I bought it--so I got to be the guinea pig and deal with it (lucky me!). Buying a brand new house is a bit like buying car in its first year of production: you will be the guinea pig dealing with recalls, manufacturing defects, and unanticipated problems...whereas, if you buy a car that's been in production for 10 years, there's a better chance that the manufacturer has ironed out many of those problems ....or, that the problems have manifested and the car has a poor reputation for reliability--which steers you away (pun intended) from purchasing the car.
It's also somewhat common for older houses to be "rehabbed" by flippers who use shiny new materials to cover up or distract from serious underlying problems. For instance, I've seen many older homes that have beautifully newly-finished basements...but, get behind that new drywall, and there's old galvanized steel plumbing with maybe 3 years of service life left, outdated and dangerous knob & tube electrical, asbestos, structural integrity problems, or any number of other issues...the end result? You buy the house (at top dollar because it's been "rehabbed"), and within a few years, those problems manifest and have to be fixed, but now instead of just fixing the problem, you also have to demo your beautifully finished basement, and then re-finish it again after the problem is fixed.
Point being: don't assume that new, or newly rehabbed automatically equals lower cost of ownership (in some cases, it may mean much higher cost of ownership).
Having said all that, obviously older houses can come with all sorts of problems that newer properties don't (e.g.; asbestos, galvanized steel plumbing, archaic electrical systems, etc., etc.), and newer properties often have many significant advantages (and may indeed come with much lower ownership costs). The point is not that older houses are always better, or that newer houses are always better, the point is: every house is different, and blindly saying "newer houses will cause you less headaches than older houses" is an overly simplistic perspective that often comes from a lack of experience with both types of houses.
The solution? Surround yourself with real experts who understand how to assess both new and old properties (do NOT rely purely on your inspector for this). Find an agent with extensive first-hand experience with carpentry, plumbing, etc., and who has extensive first-hand experience owning both newer and older properties. Pay a contractor to walk the property with you. Find a mentor with extensive experience with older and newer properties. You'll learn lessons from these people that can save you tens, on tens, on tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of dollars--not to mention a lot of stress and heartache.
It always makes me laugh that folks will spend significant time reading online reviews before choosing a restaurant for dinner, but they'll go out and buy a house (probably one of the most consequential decisions of their life) without spending any time to first find experienced professionals to guide them through the process and help them avoid painful mistakes :)
Good luck out there!
