What owning an old house here actually involves.

Only if you buy it expecting it to behave like a new one. Budget one to two percent of the value a year and you will be fine most years and grateful in the bad ones. On a $600,000 house that is six to twelve thousand. Some years you spend nothing. Then the roof goes.

Formosan termites are a fact of life here, and every old house is either under contract or should be. You pay a company for an annual inspection and a bond, usually a few hundred dollars a year, and they re-treat at no charge if anything comes back. Ask the seller for the current contract and whether it transfers.

Inside, almost always yes. Outside depends on your district. Full control districts like the Lower Garden District, the Irish Channel and Esplanade Ridge need HDLC approval for most exterior work, down to replacing windows. Much of Uptown and Mid-City is partial control, which covers demolition, major alterations and anything visible from the street. The French Quarter answers to the Vieux Carre Commission instead, which reviews even paint colors.

Knob and tube should be replaced, and your insurer will likely require it. Plaster is worth keeping, because it is better than drywall and a good plasterer can repair almost anything. Galvanized supply lines and clay laterals are the ones that surprise people, so have the lateral scoped before you close rather than after.

Yes, but the roof age, the electrical and any claims history will drive the number. Carriers care far more about those three than about the year on the deed. Get a real quote on the specific address early. The insurance, flood and elevation page goes through what moves the figure.

Rooms in a line, front to back, with no hallway. Wonderful light and a real cross breeze, and every room is a passage to the next one, which some people love and some cannot live with.

Two shotguns side by side under one roof, built for two households. Many have been opened into one large single, and whether yours was done well is a question for the inspector and the permit history.

A shotgun with a second storey added at the back, usually a room or two. It gives you a private upstairs without touching the street face, which is why so many of them exist.

Low, wide, built right up to the sidewalk, four rooms and no hall. Older than the shotgun and usually with the best proportions on the block.

A hallway down the middle with rooms either side, and usually a bigger lot. This is the plan most people arriving from elsewhere recognize, and it prices accordingly.

The main living floor sits a full storey up, above a ground level that was never meant to be lived in. That height is exactly what you want against water, and it shows up in the flood premium.

The columns, the deck, and whatever is holding them up. Galleries carry their own weight and rot from the bottom, so look hard at where the posts meet the deck.

The single most expensive thing to get wrong. If the sills have gone or the piers have settled unevenly, everything above them is affected, and the repair runs into real money.

Roofs here rarely fail in the middle. They fail where two planes meet and where the roof meets a wall, so have those looked at specifically.

Get somebody under there with a camera. Galvanized lines, old cast iron, and a lateral that has collapsed are all common here, and none of them are visible from inside the house.

Open the panel and look in the attic. Knob and tube, fuse boxes, and thirty years of additions spliced together all live in those two places.

Where does the water go when it rains hard. If the grade runs toward the house, or a downspout empties next to a pier, you will find out eventually.