Old-fashioned charm? You bet. Scary reports? You bet.
You can almost always depend on a home built before World War II to offer these three features:
charm
convenience to downtown, and
scary inspection reports
Looking at hundreds, if not millions, of inspection reports over the years has convinced me that homes built before about 1939 tend to have more maintenance problems. That's most likely because building codes weren’t as tough back then. I'll look at a typical pre-WWII home inspection and expect to see lots of minor rot damage, for example, but hope I don’t see the inspector saying the entire bathroom has to be ripped out because of moisture damage. I'll often see a pre-war home that needs to be fumigated, but I know that fumigation is a straightforward process (that few of my clients end up doing). I'll see a list, that looks short to me and long to you, of maintenance items that look minor to me and huge to you, but I hope I don’t see anything big-ticket except maybe the roof, which, again, is a straightforward job that can be done competently by dozens of local contractors. I won't be surprised to see the general inspector say the floors slope, because floors slope in many if not every home, regardless of vintage, sometimes noticeably, most often not.
What I hope I don't see is either the pest or the general inspector mention large cracks in the foundation, because those require specialized expertise to repair. On the other hand, I do expect to see those large cracks in a 1925 house because rebar was used in foundations sparingly if at all back then and because of the expansive soils we have here. Finally, I'm okay with wiring that's original, because I see original wiring in many if not most old house reports, and I don’t see a related epidemic of electrical fires, fried computers and electrocuted homeowners.
How you react to scary inspection reports depends on where you fit on the buyer time continuum. First-time buyers who’ve seen only a few reports generally react differently than first-timers who’ve seen a number of reports, and they, in turn, react differently than repeat buyers. Repeat buyers have the advantage of knowing that many of the items on the reports can be ignored without significantly affecting their enjoyment of the home or its resale value. It's not unusual for me to see a new report with the same set of maintenance problems that showed up five years ago when the current seller bought the home. Just think of them as delightful quirks that get passed down from owner to owner like a house-warming gift.
While you're having this warm thought, remember that every home is a blend of perceived risk and reward, with the balance varying with the buyer's perception. These risks and rewards are evaluated based on perceived charm and condition, as well as the perceived value of the upgrades if any and the location of the home. In other words, this stuff is subjective. Every buyer places a different value on each of these factors and therefore on the home, based on his or her perception of the risk/reward trade-off they involve. (Note that I've used "perceived" or "perception" four times in the last four sentences.) For example, if a home, pre-war or otherwise, gets ten offers, one may be a stand-out, two or three may be less than the stand-out but grouped very closely to each other, with the rest scattered from below that down to list price or even below. And that doesn’t include the people who value the home so little that they don’t make an offer.
Can you find an old-fashioned home with great reports? You bet, but those great reports come at a high price and require you to compromise, either on upgrades, charm, location or size. You give up a little of one or all to get better condition at the same price.