Looking for the wet spot

In a few hours, we will get a visit from a guy to check the house for moisture, again. He used a really great tool last time (before we bought the house) that found nothing - perhaps this time he should use the tried and true method of, rolling it in flour and looking for the wet spot. I am really hoping there is nothing too serious though, but it looks like we are going to have to open up the edges of the house and do some additional work to the drainage system. The previous owners will be here as well, as they are responsible for some aspects of the house for 5 years, water damage and moisture being one of them.

We have already eaten well into our budget and are now in minus, so I will have to find some extra income from somewhere over the next six months as the final bills will roll in. My plan was to sell my body down by the docks, but we live inland. My back up plan is to get a little more work if I can as well as save, as in the first year we are paying interest only on the loan, something that we weren't going to do originally, but since the Corona thing happened just after, I am glad we did. We also put a collar on the interest rates for 10 years, which will "protect us" if they shoot up.

While we have gone over budget, I think that we have so far managed to accomplish what we set out to do with most of the major aspects being taken care of with heating, windows, bathroom, attics, exterior painting and entrance getting done. The interior surfaces are going to be a month by month expense, where we go through each room buying what we need as we go. I am hoping that we will be able to get a fair amount done upstairs by autumn so we can "move in" and start on the surfaces downstairs. Our timeline is tight as we have til January to raise the evaluation of the property significantly to roll the loans together, but I am thinking that we might have been able to do a fair amount of it already. The surfaces will be a pretty big factor however, as looks matter.

It is funny that people say how "looks don't matter" but in everything material we care about the looks of things and their design. Sure, people might mean it in respect to people, but I think that psychologically, we don't make the distinction when we evaluate - what people might forget however is that people can have very different preferences in what they find attractive and even if there are averages, there are always outliers. Looks matter to each of us, but what looks matter can differ greatly.

For the most part so far, the looks of our home hasn't changed too much yet other than the windows and the garden being far neater, but in time I am hoping that it will be relatively unrecognizable. The previous owners let a lot of little things slide and didn't "finish" much of what they started well, meaning that over time, a lot of things need to be done, but this gives us room to grow our style and meld it into the house.

When we were looking (which wasn't meant to be actually looking) we saw a house similar that was finished and move in ready - also far more expensive. While my wife liked it, I was far more critical as it would have meant buying someone else's style and paying a premium for it. I expect that when we get this one to about the same degree of finish, we will have spent about 60,000€ less than the purchase price of the other and we will have something that we own from start to finish from a design perspective. The cost is convenience.

It is very inconvenient to renovate old homes as there are always surprises and pretty much everything has to be made to order. There is the dealing with tradespeople, the shopping around for pieces that fit and of course the sense that money is constantly heading out, which it is. However, if we had bought the other finished house, the premium would mean that all the money plus some, would be heading out all at the same time. Weirdly, this can feel like less is being paid as one is paying a single mortgage monthly, instead of the influx of bills from contractors in eye-watering amounts.

The visibility of the flow of money impacts on how we feel about and use money. For example, I believe that going to cards made us spend more as we lost the sense of the feel for money, we no longer filled our wallets with cash and no longer saw it empty through our fingers. Then eCommerce on the internet changed the visibility again, as did the relatively recent proximity card purchases. The less we see the flow, the less contact we have with money, the less awareness we have over it and that means, the less attention we are paying. I think that crypto people might have a better sense of the value of money as they spend more time looking at its flow, even though what they hold is digital and weightless.

Being able to see where things come from and where it goes physically is a far greater lesson than the conceptualization of it, and this is even more the case when what is being conceptualized is a concept, like the value of money. Technology has taken away much of our view of money, so it is no surprise that people are losing touch with the value of it - like children who haven't had to work for it. Because of our desire for convenience, it means that like the finished house, everything can be bought based on the looks, without the recognition of the premium paid for it. The flow of money out can be large, even though the value of what is purchased might not be worth it.

The other option we looked at was buying a new house (not that we wanted to) which is very, very convenient and expensive for what one gets, but doesn't factor in that all of the new houses being the same, that there are small yards, no storage space and the largest factor, no room to add value to the house because it is already done, finished. All a person can do is decorate to differentiate.

But looks matter and people have their preferences and hold ideas about what has value to them. Some people will be worried about the surprises of an old house so pay a premium to have certainty with a new - even if they could renew an old house for less and add value to it for all of those people who prefer to buy ready.

The inspector will be here soon and this is a big house, so I hope he will bring enough flour.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]