- English translation
Coming across a house already built is like picking up a purse of money someone dropped.
- Literal wording
Whoever finds a built house has found a thrown-away purse.
- Meaning and lesson
The saying treats buying a house that already stands as a stroke of luck, like picking up a dropped money bag: an honest windfall, not a theft or a free seizure of property. A seller rarely recovers the full cost of construction, so the buyer gains value that someone else paid for in money and effort.
More broadly, it favors obtaining something complete over the long, uncertain work of producing it yourself. The time, fatigue and expense of building are spared, so the ready-made purchase counts as a gain rather than a mere transaction. The same idea lies behind preferring to buy what is already grown instead of raising it.
- When it is used
Used when advising someone to buy a finished property, or any completed asset, instead of creating it from scratch. It stresses that the buyer often pays less than the builder spent and avoids the delays and labor of construction.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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