We are first-time buyers looking for a house in a Canadian area (I'd like to omit details) close to a bigger city (but far from Toronto/Vancouver), price is not the issue. We like the area, it's close (less than 20 min walk) to all the main stores we go to (very convenient to shop the sales at 3 supermarkets in just an hour, by car), good public transport to work, lots of young middle-class families.
Most of the detached housing is comprised of medium-sized houses (3-4 bedrooms), built in the last 15 years, on very small lots. However, one small part of the area has older homes.
One such home for sale was originally built in 1920. It was however completely renovated in multiple steps, and is now a nice 2-storey house on a lot that is over 15,000 sq ft (Mr Money Mustache may disapprove of big lots, but we like them as well as being further from our neighbors and having trees, non-urban environments reduce our stress levels). My problem is that while visiting the home with my agent (the listing agent was not present), we noticed (the agent too) many details, such as uneven floors and ceilings, poorly installed ducts going from the furnace to the ground floor, no ducts going to the second floor, the gutters (eavestrough) were poorly installed, the overground pool was left to die (it's empty and weeds are growing) and we don't know why, etc. Furthermore, there's no A/C, a must for us, and our agent could not tell us how easy or not it would be to get it. On some things, I knew more than the agent, for instance by looking through older Google Street pictures. I feel like agents are there to hold our hands, while what we want is a fact checker. Yes we need reassurance, but what reassures us are facts, not ideas of what we could do with the backyard.
My main question is, what are the risks that despite positive inspections and all that, we end up having to spend thousands upon thousands to keep the house in shape? My concern isn't so much with the buying price, but with having unexpected expenses that end up being necessary to preserve the integrity of the house. It seems that the general attitude is for people to not even care about throwing 20,000 here and 40,000 extra there on the mortgage...
Thanks.