Thinking about buying a historic home? Whether you're drawn to the craftsmanship of a bygone era or the charm of original details, older homes can offer some things modern houses often lack. In this program, we’ll cover what to look for before you buy — starting with the importance of a thorough home inspection and how to work with your inspector. Then, we’ll dive into the features that make older homes special — original details, restoration potential, and timeless design — while also pointing out some key issues to watch for, especially in pre-1920s homes.

Whether you're actively house hunting or just curious about older homes, you'll walk away with a better understanding of what makes a historic home a great investment — and what might make it a challenge.

Speaker

Matt Cantor has been performing inspections since 1988 and is a graduate of the University of California (Cal) Berkeley's College of Environmental Design. Matt's area of expertise is centered around the retrofitting and upgrading of early 20th century houses with special emphasis on seismic issues, energy conservation (green remodeling) and moisture issues.

Matt loves the crawl — his license plates is, no joke, ICRWL4U — and the archeology of the houses he inspects, and loves to share the architectural history and the thinking of those who built, wired and plumbed our houses 70, and even a hundred and forty years ago. “There’s much to love about how houses were built in 1870 and the bones are often quite good. Nevertheless, we’ve learned a lot since then, and, while quality of construction may have suffered in various ways, the thinking involved in heating systems, wiring and seismic bracing (to name a few domains) has advanced substantially and in ways that we cannot afford to ignore.”

Matt considers communication to be at the heart of the inspection. “If you can’t talk about it in a meaningful way, in context with other issues and people’s lives, the information isn’t very useful.” He has also published over 200 articles for the Berkeley Daily Planet (they’re all still there at berkeleydailyplanet.com for you to read) on a range of home care topics and has also appeared in 6 episodes of HGTV’s House Detective series.