mine had acoustic tiles about 1' square in the living room. thye had a metal track they were attached to. I tore both the tiles and the track out and put 1/2" drywall over it. the original plaster could have been"saved" I dont think it was put there because of plaster issues but perhaps it was fashionable.
I had paneling in the attic. It had beaver board on the ceilings up there, the beaverboard is basically like thin particleboard, but it was fairly old. 1930]s maybe?
on the walls it had 70's particleboard in the attic. First thing I did was rip all that out and drywalled. the original house , main floor used plaster, but the attic and basement were not living spaces. My basement had cardboard boxes stapled to the studs and it was like that many years prior to someone caring enough to remove it all, insulate and drywall.
I wouldn't let the presence of paneling distract you too much. Old drywall from about the 50's to 70's can contain asbestos in the filler and here it is a dollar a pound to rid yourself of that stuff. paneling is never hard to dump. I had no issues dumping acoustic tiles.
focus on the "bones" the foundation, are the walls rotting at the bottom, is the roof all weird and wavy? does it have a wet basement or good drainage? recent sewer? old plumbing? electrical need replacement? roof? chimney? are all the pipes black and from an early era? do the shut off valves for toilets and things work or are they all seized, are the windows painted shut? is all the woodwork painted over? condition of original floors?
old houses can be fixed, it is a lot of labor and cost so I'd look and pick the best you can afford. make judgements about weather it has been maintained or if you will rebuild it all around you.
Try not to underestimate what you can accomplish in a given time. It is easy to buy a house and find it's way more work or more cost than you imagined. ( or more mess and trouble than your spouse imagined) You can't change the area so try to make a good judgement with reasonable expectations.
I wouldn't let the paneling or acoustic tile change my opinion much on a purchase. even if the walls are bashed up, you can put drywall over it , even just 1/4" drywall , Or you can restore the plaster using traditional materials if it seems practical to do so. if you put your doorknob or kick a hole in a wall that's an easy repair. If it's all finished and crooked and you jack it up and make it straight then crack up all the drywall doing so you haven't gained a lot by it being cosmetically nice. if the floors are sanded to the shiny nails they might look pleasing on initial inspection but really, you aren't saving the floor so easily. If they were never sanded then you might be able to make them look beautiful through sanding and refinishing.
non original siding might be something to look deeper into , to find out whats behind you might need to owners permission to open spots to have the inspector check.
old houses, like from the 20's dont really have much asbestos usually but it might be a concern if it has had a lot of modifications during the time of asbestos being in frequent use. most old houses had no insulation.
I'd be perceptive about the repairs that were done. If it has a lot of cheap repairs that were done for the purpose of flipping then that could reflect the attitude of the previous owner. If it is just old and was held in the family for many years then they may not have done as much damage through renovations.
you'll learn to fix the walls and stuff like that. its time consuming, maybe dusty and messy but not overly costly. mine was really not modified that much , what was done wasn't so bad. the cosmetics were bad. I'd rather fix "old" than to be removing a bunch of crazy recent reno work. I'd be wary if it was built on wood blocks but even those ones dont fall down easily, they just go all crooked. If you have bug concerns in your area I'd pay attention to that, some can have structural issues from termites etc.
I'd spring for an inspection by a qualified house inspector,, but take whoever you can that knows how to fix houses on your initial journeys. If you pay a little for an inspection then you will likely also profit from the knowledge if he's good. If that's too expensive then at least try to find an inspection report from some other house to use as a checklist.
I'd avoid ones with sloping floors and a lot of changes. Rather have a straight but old house with poor cosmetics than a crooked pig with a lot of fancy makeup. If a previous owner did some of the work but at least did what he did "well", then that might be a head start.
try to add up all the time it will take , then realize your time estimate is way too low because of all the things you will learn, the things you dont know about now that it needed, you will overlook stuff, but you have the ambition, you can do it. you dont need to be big or strong, you dont need to know it all, you just need to be motivated toward your goal, and be realistic to avoid disappointment, realize it is years not months, like on TV drama shows.
to put it into context, took me three years of summer holidays to do my own roof. Its still not quite finished. In the meantime the house two over was demolished and they already have the roof on. one month from wrecking ball to a new house with a new roof ! i could almost put my whole house in the hole they dug for the foundation!
Those are commercial contractors, they go like a well oiled machine with contractors of every sort doing their bit. I'm just one guy. I restored all the floors, most of the walls some of the trim , its been quite a few years with no end in sight. restoration is extremely time consuming as opposed to new construction so buy one you really love.
I feel like going over and telling them to slow down because they are making me look bad
they did their roof in a day or two, for me it takes eons ! a new roof is 10 to 20 K so I saved a little, at least I avoided more dreaded debt.
My girlfriend dumped my thermos of fresh coffee down the drain this morning before I left for work, because she is mad at me, probably a vacation would help? who knows. I probably shouldn't have asked that she make me a sandwich but I figured since she wasn't working and I shopped and paid for the food, she'd perhaps help a little. I think my vision was that we work together, pull in the same direction. I couln't care much that she isnt' working but I do expect her to try , to look for work , I know its not her fault she's laid off, but just try your best ? I guess I have the expectation that she should to help do the things she can to support me and I do likewise.
Im not mean or difficult to get on with. a lot of the stress is about her job loss and corona virus and frustration but it's not always easy to have to invest all your time into fixing stuff. In my experience there are very few ladies that are really into doing stuff like this , at least I never meet them personally, but that's just my experience. My wife left after the first 2 years, couldn't stand the renos and to be fair it was hard then, kitchen torn up. we were making do but it was awkward. now it's livable even kinda nice, but the roof pounding might not be so great for my girlfriend's disposition. I made the mistake a week ago of saying we are "living the dream"
I felt good as I had just come down from 2 hours of roofing and was happy to be making progress, she saw it differently. I can joke about it, but what I'm saying is this stuff matters. Everyone is different but if you dont have buy in you are either doomed or on your own.
don't assume you are going to talk your way around it.
while you fix it that initial investment will become smaller because of inflation. you cant' predict inflation or economics but things like the outskirts of a city might be predictable if the city is growing. consider the view, consider the noise, consider the drainage. how much fall do you have for your sewer? how about storm drains? can it flood? was the sewer ever replaced? try to avoid a house with a wet basement if you can. mine was on a hill , it really cant' flood. some are in a swamp and you cant' fix that. If in time the house is demolished the distance ( drop) to the sewer might affect how deep the foundation can be. here that equates to usable square footage because a 30 x 100 foot lot is about a million dollars, the land is the investment , not the structure. that's different in a small town where land prices are much lower and always will be. here in BC the land prices arent' high but in Vancouver they are nuts because of land availability. people drive further than I do , sometimes 2 hours further to get into the city. when fuel prices rise, I smile because my land goes up because all those commuters need to buy gas every day. To have that I sacrifice tranquility. I'm on a noisy street. think of what you need and what's available and put thought into predictions of what will happen in 20 years in various areas near you.
I paid 370K now the land is a million, It wasn't the house that went up. it could go down too but since they are building giant skyscrapers and many condos, I know the land isn't' going to become worthless. In some cities economics of job loss caused severe changes to values. It sounds like I made a lot of money but not really because if I sell I must also pay a lot more so it is all relative. If I had bought smaller or further or an even crappier house I could perhaps have less financial stress, and it has been stressful keeping up to the rising costs too.
If you wait for the money to buy a perfect dream home the prices can also go up over that time and if you pay rent instead of mortgage you are starting out later in life. If you picture it being all perfect that might equate to many years of weekend labor. you may love it or you may find it took a big chunk of your life that you could have invested in your career. Try not to bite off more than you can chew. If you can have a rental and profit from that might help feed the many trips to the big box store. you might consider the first house to be the "be all and end all" but it might just be a stepping stone to bigger and better or a future rental so you can mass enough property to become a rich slumlord
i wouldn't go tearing everything apart at once when you make a decision , think in steps and do it in phases unless you can afford to live somewhere else. for some, they hire teams of contractors. I wouldn't assume that. don't assume friends and family will help. Great if they do but its your investment. If you have a significant other , get their buy in, really and truly, because a bad decision here can make or break your relationship.