New Apartment

My wife and I just received the keys of the apartment we bought back in late January. The (grumpy) tenant left in early May after she agreed to terminate the rental contract early, but the previous owner was on vacation (and then, on another vacation), so we received the keys only now.

We must renovate the apartment before we move in, so we're extending our own rental contract until September or October. The previous owner inherited this old apartment from her father two years ago and doesn't know much, so we must replace the water pipes and the electrical circuit, then fix the (old) floor and (moldy) walls. I expect it to take so much time (3 months) because renovation contractors expect some input (an "inventory" and a "planning") that's easier to obtain if you go to an interior designer first, and the interior designer can't do her thing unless she receives the output of an "apartment measurer" first. Basically, it's a 3 or 4 stage Unix shell pipeline of people: some block and can't start their work immediately, some have multiple implementations you must choose from, some use buffering to make their own work more efficient, and some close their stdout pipe prematurely. The path of least resistance is maximizing the number of services you combine to make this renovation happen (and the risk you take), because you can't simulate any of the elements of this pipeline yourself, as someone who doesn't work in this industry.

It's a hard year for us: we had our wedding almost a year ago (and the wedding planner basically stole our money: we had to do everything ourselves, in a short and crazy wedding season between lockdowns), we planned a honeymoon (and had to return from Vienna after two days due to lockdown, without any compensation), I had to find a new job (because I felt something is wrong, and the company shut down shortly after I left), then we searched for an apartment (in a boiling housing market) and took a mortgage (in a storm of interest rate increases, but we have a great mortgage consultant).

I don't mind paying more for peace of mind, but we must stay budget conscious if we want to shorten our mortgage (using the leftover money) once we're done with the renovation. This constant need to put down fires and choose between risk now (slow renovation) and risk later (increasing interest rates) is exhausting, and I hope we'll find the right people to work with.