I’m having a coffee break in the moving process this morning and waiting for the ‘heavy grunt’ to roll up and shift the big stuff. I’ve shuttled all day yesterday and another couple of runs this morning, but heavy stuff I’m paying other people to do.

We have built twice and bought established 4 times in our 20 years together and each has their strengths.

When you like to be in control and know exactly what your finished product will be, building is good. When you want to let someone else do a lot of the set up work (and you’re happy to modify as needed) then buying est is good.

Of course buying established means dealing with owners, agents etc and this morning turned into a little bit of a schmozzle as we arrived to see that the spa which we had bought as part of the purchase has been removed and a fence smashed down to get it out. Not a great way to start the day.

Those things tend not to happen when you build, but when the previous owner is not in a good place and life is falling apart then anything is possible I guess. I was angry at the rudeness of it all, but given we haven’t settled yet in figuring the purchase price will be about $4k less than agreed and as I was going to sell it, it’s saved me the hassle.

I’m wondering what other surprises we will discover as we move in… Inevitably there is stuff that can be hidden in inspection that only shows in the ‘living’. I’m ok with that as you agree to take that gamble when buying est.

So we leave a home we designed and built to go to a place someone else designed, built and modified and we will need to do our own mods too.

See you on the other side…