Morton Marcus
You can’t judge a house solely by its age. Unlike people, houses can be modernized, updated, and refurbished because they are less integrated than humans. Replacement furnaces are easier to install than human hearts and come with a longer warranty. Failed plumbing systems at home have complete, routine remedies while our personal systems often require extensive monitoring of their imperfect performance.
Data on the condition of houses is not as readily available as buyers would like. Most often we can discover the age of a structure, but we know little beyond that in most cases. It takes a professional inspector to tell us about the condition of the beams and the boards, the furnace and the fireplace, the garbage disposal and the garage doors.
As home buyers, however, we think of prospective properties in terms of their age. We base much on our prejudices of construction techniques and materials of today compared to yesterday.
“Oh, them old doors were real wood, not some cheap compost veneer.”
“Lordy, today’s kitchen will make your breakfast coffee, eggs, and toast before you can get down the stairs and to the table.”
Nationally, 48% of houses were built before 1980. That means nearly half went up more than 46 years ago, in a time before the cell phone or the WNBA.
Houses in Indiana rank 18th oldest among the states, with 52% built before 1980. That’s just ahead of Maine and right behind West Virginia. Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan are all even older than we are; only Kentucky, at 45% built before 1980, ranks younger among our neighbors
Now this can be a tribute to homebuilders and the suppliers of materials that go into homes. It also might be a compliment to home owners and renters who take care of property so that our residential infrastructure is well maintained.
But that is not what we see often as we drive our city streets and county roads. Maybe our eyes pick out the rundown porches, the unpainted boards, the broken windows of still occupied dwellings. And we label them as Old Houses because, in contrast, that really Old House across the way is so attractive with fresh paint, an intact roof, and flowers coming back for another burst of springtime. Certainly, that can’t be really old.
Within Indiana, 79.6% of occupied housing was built before 1980 in Benton County. Right behind are Wayne, Cass, Randolph, Fayette, and Henry counties, all with more than 75% of their housing structures built before 1980.
The newest housing is found (surprise!) in five counties adjacent to Indianapolis (Marion County). Only 18% of the occupied housing in Hamilton County was built before 1980. That is followed by Hendricks at 27%, then trailed by Johnson, Boone, and Hancock, each from 35% to 39%.
To me, age is not the crucial housing factor. It’s the volume of the neighbors’ music players and brightness of their exterior lights after sundown. A house is only as good as the people living in it allow it to be. Even the home inspector gathers no data on those factors.
Marcus is a research economist formerly with the Kelley School of Business at IU. Contact him at mortonjmarcus@gmail.com. Send comments to editorial@therepublic.com.
