Council delays hold up progression to next project

We're still waiting for Council to approve the amendment to the Building Consent which will allow us to get the cesspit in and the new drive done.

Several lots of tenants are waiting to view or rent the house (click to view). We only advertised on Trade & Exchange online and http://www.sella.co.nz/ both of which are free. To list on Trademe would have cost $99! It's frustrating that we can't tell people a definate move in date. Most of them are saying they're keen to wait, since the house is worth it. None of the prospective tenants have baulked at the $390 pr wk rent plus having to pay for the water.

It's hard not to start looking for the next project. There's a house for sale on the same street for $300,000. The tenants are keen to stay. More attractive are the sections adjoining it. We find ourselves running away with ideas on what we could build there. How could we think of doing that after the gruelling year that it's been? It's the challenge. An empty site has it's own peculiar limitations: like the outlook, where the sun will be, the odd shape, the small size, the proximity to neighbours. There's the challenge of aiming to provide an honest comfortable home without over-capitalising, whilst remaining realistic about the area and the demographic of the community. There's no point building a $450,000 house in a street of houses worth only $280,000 that will only ever attract tenants able to pay $350 a week without over-crowding the place.

We're looking at kitsets. $145,000 for a section, $117,000 for a kitset to lock-up, $25,000 Council new dwelling fee, $5000 to WaterCare... $2700 building consent fees, plumbing, decorating - you do the sums. It just doesn't add up. It's up to $300,000 in no time without hidden extras. Can't do it. May as well buy the existing house and be earning from day one. Plus we wouldn't have to spend a year of weekends and holidays working on it.

Tim Ferris, in an interview on YouTube, said "income without time is no value."  It's a good thing to remember: we're doing this to set up cashflow, to set up an income stream that will buy us out of having to sell our time to someone else and in the process make them rich. We've laboured very hard for a year to set up this rental property. The payback will be the passive income. Oh and the doodad:

The boat. That's just our small reward, our way of switching out of work-work-work back to a pattern of having some leisure (with a few snapper thrown in).