My wife is looking at houses.
We have an apartment that we have a little collateral in and our mortgage is manageable. But the problem is that the building maintenance costs have almost tripled in the 5 years we have been here. The reason is that the people who live in the building are mostly either long-term residents who aren't going to ever move again or, renters (We have been very unfortunate with the tenants above and below us). The owners of the apartments keep upgrading parts of the building and adding it onto the debt, and while we have a "say" in this, it is not a large enough stake to override. In many respects, the changes that they make are like putting lipstick on a pig - and it isn't even a nice shade.
What kind of renovations are you talking about? If I recal correctly, in a building roughly the of most buildings age in your area, typical parts and systems due to being renovated may include: the plumbing + bathrooms/kitchens, sewage pipes, electrical wiring, balconies and the exterior walls, doors+windows, roofing (inspection at a minimum followed by maintenance/repair). If the long-term residents of your building are wasting money mainly on other kinds of things, it may indeed be time to move out.
Those structures and parts have a lifetime based on normal wear and tear. If don't replace 40 to 60 year-old pipes (I don't recall the exact expected lifetimes of various types), you're going to have leaks which no insurance company will cover. Serious water damage is very, very expensive to repair. There are serious health risks to such damage, too.
Unless you're ok with substandard housing, living in a home of a certain size in a certain area will cost a certain amount of money. There is no escaping that. In some Western European countries, people just don't care and it shows in the condition of the buildings. I've heard a lot of horror stories from au pairs, exchange students and other Finnish expats in WE about the conditions of residential buildings there.
The plumbing was done as we bought. Then they added some 'surface renovation' done "cheaply" and poorly in styles that do not age well, based on trends from the 90s. :) They did half the balconies when doing the windows, but now have to do them properly, which means redoing what was done 5 years ago. Lots of little things by people who know better than everyone else.
One part of owning a home is being master of one's own destiny in some respect. I had never rented until coming to Finland.
I wouldn't mind finding a nice rintamiestalo somewhere, but obviously price is an issue still, as well as location etc. I'd also like to one day build for myself, as I think I could design a kick ass home :D
Good for you.
That's not great. Was the bathroom done like that? It has to be renovated if the plumbing is replaced.
That's a pity. It can cost about €10,000 to replace the windows of a family home. I dare not think what replacing the windows would cost us if we had to do it in our house but they seem to be in good shape. I already had to have snow guards installed. The front porch is in need of maintenance. The long moist autumn and the wet warm winter hasn't been kind to it. The garage door remote control is broken and the fault could be in the receiver because I changed the remote battery and it didn't help. Just had to have the mechanism of one leaking toilet seat replaced. The kitchen appliances seem quality models but they might have to be replaced in the next few years. There's always something. A hundred here and a few hundred there.
This is why home ownership is common here, too, and favored by the tax code.
If you have to fly frequently, you might want to consider Nokia as it is not far from the airport, accessible quickly by motorway, and, as far as I know, the house prices there are relatively low. They can be surprisingly low given that the shore of Pyhäjärvi is not far from any part of the zoned area around the core of the town. Pirkkala near the airport tends to be expensive.
If you're going to buy a rintamamiestalo, they can be very nice. But if they have been renovated thoroughly, it would be wise to pay attention to how the renovations were done. Hire a professional home inspector of your own. A classic mistake some people make is insulating the basement from the inside. Guaranteed microbial damage because there is nothing to stop moisture in the warm moist indoor air from condensating on the cold side of the insulation. Also, it's a good idea to factor in the cost of upcoming necessary repairs and upgrades such as rebuilding the foundation drainage system if it hasn't been done already. Basements must be kept dry in this climate. Why? Because differences between air humidity and temperature outside and in the house vary greatly according to the time of year. Condensation tends to be periodic. The dry periods put potential microbial growths under a lot of stress, which is when they begin chemical warfare on each other, which is when the human occupants may become collateral damage.
It would have been if we had gone with their choices. Our bathrooms are nice - we designed and bought the furniture and fittings :)
All of the little expenses add up and it is even worse if one isn't equipped to do the renos and has to pay a professional. Not that I have a lot of faith in Finnish tradespeople tbh. Lt's of experience with them, very little good.
I do fly often at the moment, but it doesn't change much as the customer covers costs anyway :)
If we do look at rintamiestalot, we have a couple friends who have a massive amount of experience with them, the renovations of them and the points to look for. We would likely get a professional in after that anyway. So many things can go wrong with them if not prepped properly.
Great!
I'm sorry you've had bad experiences. Mine have been varied. Some good, some bad. It really comes down to having a network of friends or acquaintances who can recommend good tradespeople. I know one guy does floors and other renovations in your city who's good.
In 2008, we had our bathroom renovated by a company in Tampere where we lived at the time. The bathroom guy was ok but he had a specialist for doing the tiles whose work we had nothing to complain about except that he suddenly took off to Turkey for a week in the middle of everything. My parents once dealt with a contractor who had a drinking problem. Beware of Laestadians who push overpriced contracts on you. :)
Sure, but if you fly from Pirkkala, living not too far from the airport wouldn't hurt.
Definitely.
BTW, the garage door remote control started working by some miracle today. I went down to the supermarket to get my sauna beer and when I came back about fifteen minutes ago, I tried the remote for the hell of it only because I had mentioned it earlier in this thread. And it worked! It stopped working almost two years ago.
The funniest part of us doing the bathrooms was that they had to return money to us and, they would bring their people through to see them and say, we could have done this in all of them.. :)
Yep, the network is needed for tradespeople, but I don't think it should be to the degree it is. THe other weird thing is that when building (might have changed now) the building company doesn't have their own selected crew - which means the results vary greatly - my brother built a Jämerä home with some disaster people - they were given a list and had to call them themselves.
Their tilers after getting 50% deisappeared for 5 weeks. They called from Kuopia finally and said they were coming to do the job, but they needed more money upfront, because they had drunk theirs and couldn't afford to get back to Tampere.
Yeah, but I think it is the Australian in me. I wouldn't move to be closer to my workplace either. Though that is in Hervanta...sooo ;D It is actually quite nice there I guess these days once heading toward the Vuores areas.
Score on the remote - but don't trust it :)
What a fucking disaster!
I know better. :) I wonder if this whole thing was a contact issue in the wiring? Maybe the remote stops working again when the weather gets drier...
If it does, then at least you have a place to start looking
I always think I'd have the best designs ever when creating a house, should try draw one out one of these days. My gf keeps reminding me how I'm letting my drawing pad cover dust too and I could shitpost the drawing in the end. That's a lot of birds with one stone.
I have made a few designs over the years that I still think will work. Eventually I will refine one to be "the one" and build it with upvotes to pay the contractors :)