Back on the Blogwagon – Income Property

After a brief internet blowout followed by a round of non-sleeping children, I’m back on the blogwagon. During my brief sojourn I’ve been od’ing on a variety of home improvement television shows and spending every sleep interrupted moment applying my acquired wisdom on parts of our house.

I readily admit, I’m addicted to the darn shows. For a while there I lived in frustration though as all of those beautiful design ideas and chatchkas were not eligible for consideration under our restricted budgetary situation….but then (YAY) I found shows like Income Property and House Poor on HGTV.

These shows let me think of spending in a much more guilt-free way. Now I can daydream endlessly about putting in a nice chic kitchen in our big ‘ol basement (the electrical and plumbing is already roughed in) and rent the whole basement space out for $$.

Imagine all of the stylish new storage solutions I could justify buying for all of our mis-placed junk if we vacated the space ourselves in search of profit. OK – maybe I shouldn’t. Rather, I should be focusing on the income part before I go spending all of the profits…but where’s the fun in that (hopefully my husband isn’t reading this).

The kids would be sad to lose the basement space. Since we moved in it’s been designated as “the kids space” and my youngest hosts playgroup for the 1-3 year old set down there. I think they’d get over it though if it meant we could stay in the neighborhood they love and have to hear the words “we don’t have endless money you know” a little less often.

So now I’m figuring out...

1) the cost of conversion (AKA how upscale do we want to get before the costs outweigh the benefits),
2) timelines (spring appears to be the best time to attract renters),
3) a competitive rental price
4) the best rental agreement forms on-line.

It’s not a definite “yes – we’ll be renters” yet, but it’s fun to daydream the possibilities.