Sunday morning. A call.
- Pasha hello, did you find out?
- Yes, hello.
-Listen, I have a problem with the floors here...
I know someone I know, Andrei. Well, as an acquaintance, we meet once every two or three months. Andrei is young enough (just over 30), he has a wife and two children, one of whom is very young. He earns by Ryazan standards very averagely. 30-35K/month.
Taking into account the children and wife of the sitting at home, the money seems to be in the back of the line. And now he is tired of living in rented huts. Well, not his own, and all here. I searched, searched, searched...and found it. It's a wonderful house, even if it's on the outskirts of town. The guy is smart. Advice? Pfft... I'm not stupid myself, I'll handle it.
In short, he got into a mortgage, took 1.7M of money and bought it at the end of February, and moved. A month passed. And the bootstraps! The underfloor is flooded with water. I climbed in to see if the floors were rotten. The sewerage system stopped working. The plumbing to incense is breathing. And with money full of seams.
I wanted to tell him a lot.
- That only a fool will buy a house 50 meters from the water body almost at the level with him, and even in winter.
- That he would have to redo the whole canal, and it wasn't cheap.
- That the water supply system will have to be rebuilt.
- That he will not be able to waterproof the old underfloor and will have to fall asleep, or the floors will rot again in 5-6 years.
- That the bills for gas in winter (and I realized what walls it has) will be comparable to the payment of the mortgage. And the house will have to be insulated.
- That problems with the roof are coming.
- That he would have to change the wiring too.
- That his wife wouldn't just peck in a year's time, but punch him in the head like a woodpecker.
- That when he fixes it to a decent level, it'll be 10-15 years, and he'll invest money like a new house for a half. And it will be much worse than new.
- That then this house will not be for good reason, neither he nor his children will need it.
- That the money invested in the house he will not return even half the price. Because the old house is an old house.
-What... Yes, a lot more of them.
And he just doesn't have any money for all these "What". Mortgage + children will not allow him to do anything normal. Will patch and plug holes. New ones will appear. The money will go away like water in the sand, and the end and edge will not be visible. Buy the same three with finishing almost for the same money, would be ideal for him. And then I thought, why? He won't be happy about it, he won't believe me at once, and when he does, it's too late. He will also say, I'm scared.
I explained to him how to make the floors cheaper and said goodbye.
I know I'll be right, but... somehow sad.
P.S. I've examined more than a dozen old houses (more than 30-40 years) in none of them, and I'll repeat that I couldn't fix them in any of them for reasonable money. There was always an extremely expensive "porridge from the ax" with a very doubtful result. Here already invested 300K. For the complete arrangement, it is necessary about 800K and it will be an old house, a small square. Money is pathetic. I have already understood what I got myself into.
Here too it is already enclosed about 400K. For full cleaning, it is necessary about 1M. So far we have not realized. But already the "intensity" of work has decreased. Here is it, at times the old house turns. As early as 3 years ago, it was neat and without cracks. Now a terrible wreckage. Which is scary to approach.
So think about how much the old house actually costs.
As for me, it should be bought only under demolition. Or, as in this case, "shampoo" and sell to a horse like Andrei.