Wooden houses - ever up for sale?

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Bluebean

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Just trying to find out more about Scandinavian homes/wooden houses. Thing is, I've never seen one for sale! As in, a second hand one up for sale/auction.
Does anyone know (1) how long these houses generally last and (2) what (if any) their resale value is like?

thanks!
 
I think the issue is with the supply - really, these type of houses have only started to become more common here in the last 5-10 years, so most timber frame houses on the market are new builds. Second hand ones will eventually come on the market.
 
A number of 1950's built timber frame houses around us.

Watch for the flat roofs. Replace with single pitch light-weight decking roofs.

A lot of maintenance required.

They can last a life-time if maintained, especially if the timber cladding is a decent hardwood or cedar (pardon my ignorance if cedar is classified as hardwood!).

Condition of older timber frame houses vary hugely depending on the level of maintenance.
 
In Finland I know of wooden houses hundreds of yrs old, need good paint job every 10 yrs or so, also the warmest houses to be in
 
Bluebean,
I live in a wooden house. Just completed in the last couple of months.
1) How long do they last? - in Ireland its hard to say. In Finland etc they last hundreds of years. You have to put specialist varnish on, but the theory is that they should last well over 100 years.
2) Resale value is difficult to guage. They are a somewhat particular taste - not everyone wants to live in one. Valuations seem to indicate that they have a regular type of resale value, but they might take a little longer to sell than the traditional style.
May I ask, have you planning? Because that quite often is the difficult part?
Munsterdude
 
thanks for all the feedback. To answer a few questions - 1. No, I do not have planning, or even a site. We are very interested in building a wooden house (if we could get a site and planning) but wonder what our options are if it came to selling it in a few years. There are a few of these types of houses in the area we would like to buy, so I would be hoping that planning would not be impossible.
With regard to getting a mortgage for this type of house - due to the lack of knowledge about resale value, would it be difficult to get a 95% or 100% mortgage?

thanks.
 
The mortgage part is tricky - not all lenders will fund this type of building. Those that do fund them apply "regular" type mortgages, so 92% mortgage is not a problem. Not so sure about the 100% mortgage variety. I can give you specific details if required. There is a cashflow problem also. As most of the construction work on the house is done in the factory, you have to pay a fair portion of the house cost prior to it being delivered to ireland. You need a good size bridging facility from your lender. This is possible, but can cause some headaches.
 
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