There is no time to waste so things are moving quickly with regards to getting our Durban house ready to go on sale next month. With a preferred selling window of between September and November the timing is crucial and no time to waste.
I had accepted my Johannesburg electrician/solar guy and now jack of all trades to go and complete the upgrades required. The bank slowed things down taking almost 10 days if you include the weekends and the loan funds are now in place. The deposit to cover the purchase of materials required like gutters, paint etc has been paid and the team of 4 should be heading down Friday morning. I still cannot get over the fact this crew was $3K cheaper than the Durban handy man quote.
The job is estimated to take 3 weeks and is all up to them weather permitting plus whatever else not on the list that requires doing. I have a safety net of an extra 20% over and above the agreed quote for the just in case which there will be. I now know the insurance company never finished off the one repair in the granny flat and why relying on tenants to update you is never great. I will make a complaint with my insurance company tomorrow as this is very slack and disappointing on their part.
The 20% will have to cover tree felling and a general garden tidy up plus laying new lawn which will be done in the third week. It looks like I will pop down at the end of the second week as I also need to have a meeting trying to land a prospective new client for the packaging business. My business partner has failed to land them so far and instead of him cocking things up it is best if I do this myself. Maybe my trust in his abilities was slightly off and possibly misguided yet I know I can do this selling lark in my sleep and just comes naturally. You either have this ability or you don't and it stems around dealing with people and your personality.
I do not particularly like Durban and do try to avoid going down there except when there is the possibility of earning more money. A small sacrifice to pay I guess and will kill two birds with one shot by viewing the work on the property and visiting the "new" client.
It is weird how like works when you go through periods of nothing ever working how it should followed by periods of things just falling into place. This last week we have turned a corner and I am going to ride this wave of going right for as long as possible. First we had our Johannesburg handy man put up his hand for the Durban house only because he was at our house repairing the stove. Right place right time you could say plus our contact yesterday going to sort out our monthly electricity bill with credits promised. That is two positives plus there are a few others I will not mention until they happen that jumped out of the blue this week.