We are on our second old house. First house was remodeled by the previous owner. The key learning was some remodels are done very cheaply so ask questions on the extent of work and don’t be shy about asking for receipts. We saw too many homes that had the remodel done cheaply.
Even with that, we still found shit that was done poorly but not as bad as it could have been.
On our current home (1940s), we under estimated cost to redo the house but what saved us was having a quality inspector that we found not the realtor. We had $75k on the report so ultimately received $50k off from the inspection alone. I’d also suggest having a GC or professional remodeler give you a rough estimate prior to bidding. We passed on many old housed because the cost would be way too high to make the economics work for purchasing.
We budgeted close to $100k for the remodel plus minor addition and will likely spend closer to $200k due to additional scope and new issues found. We are still glad we are doing the remodel but be extremely conservative on remodel cost. We also found that pricing for remodel ranges widely with full service going for double the cost as us just finding all the right people to help us through the effort.
The biggest ripoff in our experience are the design build companies that do it all. We found our own designer, engineering and GC then sub-out certain GC parts that we found cheaper. It takes immense amount of effort to find these people, and they take advantage of the amount of time / effort to figure it out on your own.
One major cost savings is not going super high end on finishing. Go quality but we didn’t need the fanciest tiles, wood floors or cabinets. They key was to shop around.
Two quick examples: front door company wanted $2k to install / replace the front door plus cost of door. We were referred to a handyman that does it regularly and paid $450. On the addition, we were quoted $50k to $200k based on the same plans and scope. We went with someone that could do it for $70k.