In much of the country, the most affordable homes for sale are also the oldest. Buyers reaching for a lower price increasingly find themselves looking at houses built well before the wiring standards, materials, and layouts that exist in newer construction.
As home prices continue to climb, that calculation has become even more challenging. The median existing-home price hit $440,600 in June, an all-time high and the 36th consecutive month of year-over-year increases, according to the National Association of Realtors. Total inventory slipped to 1.56 million units, a 4.6-month supply, leaving fewer cheap, newer listings for buyers to work with.
On Wednesday’s episode of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast, host Dave Meyer and co-host Henry Washington took a question from an investor in Columbus, Ohio, who had spent years refusing anything built before 1964 and watched that rule wall off more and more affordable deals. The two spent much of the episode on whether a cutoff like that has quietly become its own kind of mistake.
“I really like this question because I don’t think there’s a right answer,” Meyer said.
What NAR’s record median home price means for buyers
The new median home price record did not arrive alongside a collapse in demand. Existing-home sales ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.09 million in June, down 2.4% from May but up 2.8% from a year earlier, and properties went under contract in a median of 28 days. Supply is what has not kept pace, and NAR’s chief economist framed that as the variable dictating where prices go next.
“The median home price has reached an all-time high,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun.
He added that progress on long-term affordability could stall if inventory growth does, and that prices can accelerate without consistent gains in supply.
This dynamic drew national attention again Saturday, when CBS News aired a segment on buying a home during the affordability crisis.
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Thin supply at a record price does most of its damage at the bottom of the market, where the move-in-ready listings that once anchored a search have priced out of reach. What is left is older, and Meyer’s warning is that screening that stock out on the calendar alone removes a large share of what is actually available.
“If your buy box starts in the 1960s, you’re filtering out a huge chunk of inventory, including some potential home runs,” Meyer said.
The Columbus investor had set a personal floor at 1964, a line drawn to avoid the knob-and-tube wiring common in older builds. The rule did its job on wiring, but it had also begun closing off affordable properties, and that is the tradeoff Meyer is asking buyers to reopen.
Widening the search reaches inventory a stricter cutoff would bury, but it also hands the buyer a set of risks a 2015 build does not carry, and those risks are where the decision gets uncomfortable.
The tradeoff BiggerPockets hosts see in older homes
Washington’s answer was not to avoid older houses but to price them correctly before signing anything. He works the same five systems on every older property he looks at.
“I’m always looking at the big five,” said Washington. “I’m looking at plumbing, electrical, roofs, HVAC, and foundation.”
Cost is what separates a bargain from a mistake, and by Washington’s estimates the range is wide. New electrical runs roughly $5,000 to $10,000. A roof lands around $10,000 to $15,000 depending on the size of the property. A routine HVAC swap runs $5,000 to $8,000, but a house that has never been ducted pushes that to $16,000 to $20,000 or more. Foundation work is the line item that worries him most, at $20,000 to $50,000 with no guarantee the house sits level afterward.
“But plumbing and foundation, you can get up there into almost six figures and having to fix some of those problems,” Washington said.
Meyer’s caution runs alongside it. The cheap-fixer version of the pitch, he said, tends to come apart once the renovation actually starts.
“A lot of people look at these older homes and say, ‘Oh, that’s a great value-add opportunity.’ And there is if you can execute it,” Meyer said.
Meyer said his own whole-house re-plumb is costing about $80,000 and has been running for roughly nine months.
That leaves buyers two workable paths rather than one. The first is an older home someone else has already upgraded, where the foundation and plumbing have been handled, the electrical ideally with them, and the layout works as it stands. The second is a narrower window. Washington named 1970 to 1975 as his sweet spot, and Meyer agreed on the reasoning, pointing to construction quality in that stretch, minimal knob-and-tube risk, and less asbestos exposure than 1960s stock.
“A lot of the quality of the construction was really good back in the ’70s,” Meyer added.
Neither path changes the condition underneath. Yun’s caution was that prices can keep climbing Before closing on anything older, both hosts advised paying for a foundation specialist’s assessment and a re-plumb quote, the two line items most likely to reshape the math after the sale.
Key takeaways for 2026 homebuyers
- Record prices are pushing buyers toward older inventory: NAR put the June median existing-home price at $440,600, an all-time high and the 36th straight month of year-over-year gains, with total inventory down to 1.56 million units and a 4.6-month supply.
- A calendar cutoff carries a cost: Meyer said a buy box that starts in the 1960s screens out a large share of what is listed, including some of the best deals. The Columbus, Ohio investor who raised the question had held a 1964 floor and watched it shrink her options.
- Inspect the big five before the cosmetics: Washington, who says he has done hundreds of deals, checks plumbing, electrical, roofs, HVAC, and foundation on every older property. New electrical runs roughly $5,000 to $10,000 by his estimate, and ducting a house that never had it can reach $16,000 to $20,000 or more.
- Foundation and plumbing hold the six-figure risk: Washington said foundation work runs $20,000 to $50,000 and can still leave a house sitting uneven, and that plumbing and foundation together can approach six figures. Meyer said his own re-plumb is costing about $80,000 over roughly nine months.
- The hosts point to the early 1970s: Washington named 1970 to 1975 as his sweet spot, and Meyer cited stronger construction quality in that era, minimal knob-and-tube risk, and less asbestos exposure than 1960s builds. Before closing on anything older, both advised paying for a foundation specialist’s assessment and a re-plumb quote.
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