Rube's journal

Where are you and where are you going?
rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

103 days = 72 work days (Mo-Fri) target.
yeah, I don't know yet. If I stick to my original planning, my latest day to resign is end of April (2 months notice).
I was actually already before this mess considering to delay it by one month as I also have about 1 month of holidays left, so effectively it would be the same for me, but if I hit an income/tax threshold it has some tax advantages. However, 1 month longer might no longer be enough to hit the threshold anymore because of a pretty low bonus pay-out this year (I should get the final number next week).

Perhaps, depending how this al goes, I can even "offer" to the company to help to cut costs of my salary by 50% to work only 50% for "some time" ;) . But I will see week by week how this develops and what is the best reasonable/calculated course for myself and the family.

I will now go out to find some toilet paper. Because everybody went out to stockpile this item for no reason :roll: , the shelves were empty earlier this week and have little left now :? ."Worst case" I need to re-read Bigato's earlier post about using water instead of toilet paper :lol:
Last edited by rube on Thu Mar 19, 2020 1:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

DutchGirl
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Re: Rube's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

Today our supermarket still had full bread shelves at 6 PM. (They close at 8 PM). I reckon they tried to learn from earlier days when the fresh bread isle was empty by midday. So now they overstocked.
I hope you found some toilet paper, Rube.

rube
Posts: 883
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

100 days = 72 work days (Mo-Fri) target.
The #100 would normally be a big milestone, but in today's world this number is not so important anymore and it might change.

No shortage of anything yet in our household, we did get hold of toilet paper (there was actually plenty available again). Italy is now also closing factories and more non-essential business. I would not be surprised if the other countries, including ours, will follow with some delay.

There were messages in the local news requesting people to not go to the nature, beach etc. as it was way too crowded. We, DW, DS, DD and I, went out today early this morning but only very locally and it was here not crowded at all, we hardly saw anyone. We saw maybe 20 persons in 3 hours and we all kept plenty of distance from each other. We walked about 10 km through meadows and along a small river, with a blue sky and nice sun.

One of my renters, she's an international student, asked if I could do anything with the rent. She's not able to study for the rest of the semester and will fly back in a couple of days to her home country (flight organized by her government). Where her other 2 roommates have parents which have more money, she needs to loan everything. For now I have offered to defer part of the rent for a few months and pay later for some time a higher rent. I don't want to be too harsh, but it is also a business and don't want be too easy to say it is okay not to pay me. We'll see how this develops.

I prepared my tax file yesterday. Collected all the documents and filled out the online form. Not submitted yet, I want to double check some details once more, but almost done. Despite the online and fairly easy system, it took me more time than I expected.

rube
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Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

94 days = 67 work days (Mo-Fri) target.
I am still listing the countdown, but in the current situation - not being able to meet/visit other people, going on holiday, doing lots of stuff I would like to do when I have more time, it has gotten less meaning. Even though the work is not getting less (yet), it does not feel very stressful at the moment. Working like this, especially parttime, but without all the limitations, would be very nice.

The renter basically said, sorry I won't pay for April. I hope you find another renter soon. It's a bit complicated because she's one of the three renters on a single contract. The other two are willingly (so far), but it is a lot for them to continue to pay for the whole rent. Especially since they are also back (for now) to their home country.
I can easily rent it out again during July/August, when the new student season is starting, but I rather keep the same renters so I don't need to deal with emptying the house, costs of vacancy, find new renters, arranging a permit etc. I have offered to lower the rent for a few months and at the same time we all trying to find a temporarily renter to make it easier for all. This would cost me some money compared to the full rent, but it is way more preferable as it will avoid a lot of hassle. And probably it still brings in more money when I would count vacancy and other costs. We'll see how this goes, for now I am pretty much able to view it as "just some money".

rube
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Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

93 days = 67 work days (Mo-Fri) target.

Rentals and (ERE) income
Another international student will return "home" and stopped paying. I made a proposal for the other remaining renters in the same apartment to lower the rent temporarily. I don't expect any issue in the other 4 apartments, at least not on short notice, because these are all rented by locals who will need a place to live and are likely to still get a loan (students), earn money or get at least unemployment benefit for a short while.
This whole situation is quite exceptional!

In order to handle this mentally in a way as easy as possible, I calculate what I see now as the likely scenario and the two worst case scenarios:
Best case scenario: The renters pay less for a few months, loss of income ~ 4K.

Worst case scenario 1: If 1: the remaining renters in these 2 apartments stop paying completely immediately 2: I can't rent out till half of August 3: I keep the deposit as breach of contract, the max. loss of income will be ~10K. But so far they seems to be okay to pay a lower rent at least for April. In a few days I should find out about this, but in that case it will be ~8K max.

Worst case Scenario 2: If the academic year will not start in September again as usual, but things return more or less to normal in 2021 (a vaccine should be available by than), I would need to find other renters who might be pay less/have more vacancy. This could add another ~11K in loss of income, which would bring the total loss of income to say roughly ~ 20K.

The rent will be our main source of income if/when we quit our day jobs. Depending how much the loss of income ultimately will be, the rent during this period is likely not sufficient to cover our expenses. it shows the importance to be (financially) resilient. I expect we are so pretty resilient as we have a very large cash buffer, we can lower our expenses and/or we can still work both (we still do at the moment).
For people who are suddenly out of a job, high expenses, this is terrible though.

Garden
We bought some fruit trees for our new garden: two different apples and a pear, plum and cherry. I hope we can start picking the first fruits of this action, literally, in 1-2 years from now. We will get some more vegetables in the garden later, but this is not our highest priority right now.

House
We used a lot more of natural gas as I expected in the first few months we lived here. But is seems that now the sun is kicking in, so year round it might not be to bad (based on the forecast of an app I am using for this). We'll see this in the next couple of months.
I am looking into the details to install solar panels. unfortunately it is not as simple as it was with our previous house, as we need to change our fuse box, change two sky lights and remove an (old) solar collector first. But I would like to this now, to still be able to profit from the sun for a good portion of the year. Though will see how this will play out with work, the rentals, the garden and everything else in the house and the family.

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Ego
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Re: Rube's journal

Post by Ego »

@rube, RE: lowering rent temporarily. I don't know about the tenant rights laws in NL but here in California we have a law that says we cannot raise rent by more than a particular % per year. If we were to lower it temporarily we'd be unable to legally return to the original rent if the tenant were to object. Tread carefully.

henrik
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Re: Rube's journal

Post by henrik »

Ego wrote:
Sun Mar 29, 2020 1:11 pm
@rube, RE: lowering rent temporarily. I don't know about the tenant rights laws in NL but here in California we have a law that says we cannot raise rent by more than a particular % per year. If we were to lower it temporarily we'd be unable to legally return to the original rent if the tenant were to object. Tread carefully.
Maybe a/the solution is to have a written agreement that the lower rent is complaisant due to exceptional circumstances (whatever the legal term in your country) and that the baseline is still the same?

rube
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Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

Hi Ego, thanks and yes a very good point. My proposal was not something formally written/signed (so far). I'll need to think how to arrange this but I think I can work something out that will help the renters but won't put me in jeopardy longer term.

@Ego, @Henrik, thanks for your comments and suggestions!

rube
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Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

92 days = 66 work days (Mo-Fri) target.
The start of week 3 of WFH. We should WFH for another 2 weeks, but I expect this will be longer. Also tomorrow the government wil announce if measures will be extended, any changes etc. I expect things will be closed longer.

Since the schools are closed etc. DS has implemented a schedule for work-outs, running, making healthy smoothies in the morning, working on his main hobby and doing a little :D school. Even though I was not very active before, at least I had some exercise on my bike, walking to work etc. Lately I only had a few walks outside. So I said to DS yesterday evening, I might join you on your morning run tomorrow. So this morning I did, I took a shortcut to keep up with him, but I ran 4 km at 7:30, nice and cool outside, sun just coming up and no other people out.

simplex
Posts: 212
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Location: NL

Re: Rube's journal

Post by simplex »

Hi Rube,
regarding renting, I don't think Covid-19 will have long term effects on the housing market in general, because there is so much latent demand in NL. However I do think there will be much influence in the short to medium term.

And I don't think everything will be back to normal in September. Probably travel will be limited between zones/countries/continents. That means that part of the short term rental market will have problems, starting with AirBnB.

I'd also think that the commercial real estate market will take a hit, and maybe shops and offices will be converted to housing.

rube
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Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

90 days = 64 work days (Mo-Fri) target.
rentals
Hi Simplex, I echo your comments. All AirBnBs and some commercial are already having issue/challenges. Luckily I don't have such properties, so even if there are no international students, I can most likely still rent out to local students or just couples (for slightly less). No real big worries there for the more "normal" rental market.

Target date:
According my target, I should hand over my notice end of this month. But yesterday the government announced all measures will be in place till at least 28th of April. So that means WFH at least till end of the month and perhaps/probably longer. And I also foresee summer holiday will be different (perhaps staying at home?). So, while I keep the target and update it with every new post, I am pretty sure that this won't be the actual date anymore. This is not the one more year syndrom, but I first want to see how this plays out a bit more. Though, if it will last (much) longer, I might start taking some holidays, or start the discussion at some point to work parttime.

Exercise
I had another run this morning with DS at 7 AM. Saw some hare in the meadows, birds chirping, sun coming up. Very nice. Friday again?

Finance
Since our move, I have some difficulties in calculating our monthly expense. There are currently a lot of (high) one-off expenses. If I just add them as all other expenses, this will skew the numbers and it is not a good reflection of our actual long term monthly costs. For now I kept them in a separate bucket and I estimate this bucket should be "done" after end of next year.

Our net worth is also getting harder to estimate. House market continues to go up. At least, so far. I don't expect the C-virus will have much/fast impact, but who knows....For know I estimate end of Q1 2020 we're roughly at 1050K.

rube
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Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

88 days = 62 work days (Mo-Fri) target.
End of the 3rd week WFH. Company policy for WFH is extended by another 4 weeks from now.
My employer is handling this very well. The employer of DW on the other hand....
DW has largely been WFH th last 2-3 weeks. Her work is extremely suitable to do from home. But management is old fashioned and don't like it. They are putting pressure on her to be present more frequently :( . She told she's okay to come in if there is max. 1 or 2 persons (including her) on the department (according their own previous guidelines). But even that they don't seem to be willing to do that (anymore). I don't like it. At all. I told her just to stay home. Or tell them you will take an unpaid leave if they don't agree with you staying home. They can't force you to come to the office. Or if they don't agree let the company fire you (I don't think they are allowed). Still she feels very obliged/loyal, despite the fact we don't really need her (or mine) job and income. We would be fine without both our jobs. We're both not in a high risk group if we would get Covid-19, but apart from the fact I prefer simply not to increase my/our chances of getting it, it is not only about us, it is about the whole community and the government is firmly requesting employees/employers to WFH when possible. I noticed Steveo73 journal and his DW is simply staying at home.
Am I too worried - strict, does it make sense, how far should I push my DW to stay firm :?.

ertyu
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Re: Rube's journal

Post by ertyu »

even if you're not in a high risk group, losing 30% of lung capacity and setting oneself up for future complications isn't something to risk lightly either. Good call, hope DW doesn't give into the pressure to come into the office when completely unnecessary.

DutchGirl
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Re: Rube's journal

Post by DutchGirl »

I'd say the company should stick to the rules. See here, for example. Your employer has to provide you with a workplace that is as safe as is possible.

Furthermore I'm glad to read that your family and you are doing okay. That's the most important thing, right now. Keep it up :-)

...And sometimes shit happens and one has to adapt their plan. I am probably also going to adapt a bit to the current exceptional situation.

rube
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Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:54 pm
Location: Europe (NL)

Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

74 days = 52 work days (Mo-Fri) target

It is only 2 weeks ago but it feels like a lot happened in the meantime. On the other hand, not much changed for us.

Work The company of DW took measures. We can’t deny that. The workplace might be “as safe as possible”, but if you are with a couple of dozens persons in one building, sharing toilets, door knobs etc. you can only do so much. So why still even go to an office when it is not really needed?
So, after thinking about it during the weekend of my previous update, DW was ready to send her resignation letter. Only last minute we/she decided to change the approach and she simply informed her manager – “at least until the government is asking people to work from home when possible, I am working from home”. So far nothing new to what she already told them before, but she added “I don’t want to have another discussion about it. If this won’t work – I am willing to resign”. Her manager responded a bit agitated that he already knew her position and it was okay, but he couldn’t remove her from the official schedule due to higher management visibility. Well, if only he would have made that clear earlier….In any case, we’ll still have to see how long the strong request to work from home from the government will last and what we/she will do after that. We’ll see how it goes week by week.

For me, WFH, the 5th week already, is okay. My productivity might not be top notch on all days, but I get a lot of stuff done and the quality of my work is pretty well if I say myself. For now I won't make any change - also here, we'll see how it goes week by week.

Financially My bonus was the smallest in a few years, like only 25% of that of last year. But I saw this coming already for a long time.
I don’t understand the “rally” of the stock market. It is probably me (at least for now) that don’t get it, as the market is always right. I wanted to deploy much more cash, but not at levels only 20% down compared to a few months ago. So sitting still on a lot of cash.

House We had 4 days off last weekend, so I started the first preparations to have solar panels on our roof. I worked one whole day on the roof to remove some things and used another day to select the type of panels and transformer and other small stuff. Still need to do more: change sky lights, ventilation pipes, before the solar panels and the new fuse box can be installed and everything can be connect. Also the Chimney requires some work. So still many things to be done, but the first start is made. My aim is to have it all operational before end of June.
My ultimate goal would be to have the house energy neutral. After adding some more insulation, changing windows and some other things, I expect this might be (with the solar panels) possible year-round, but not on a daily basis. So in the winter we would still take electricity from the net, in the summer we have a surplus. Hence my aim is to generate as much electricity as possible to keep the shortage on dark days as little as possible. Financially this might not be the optimum, but that is a deliberate decision.

Garden we planted several small fruit trees and berry bushes. DW has also been seeding and planting other vegetables. It has not our full priority this year as we have lot of other things to do, but we hope it is a nice start. The sky is remarkable blue these last few weeks with very nice sunny weather. We have had several lunches with the family in the back yard. Nice to be able to do this on working and school days.

Renters No major change from previous updates. So far so good.

Rentals One rental will be vacant as of early June. This was agreed with these renters when we bought it last year. It need to be renovated (badly). After renovating it, we can rent it out for more. I hope the property management company comes back with reasonable quotes to take care of it. I don’t really have the time for it as long as I work FT and everything I want to do in our own house.

abn
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Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2018 5:38 pm

Re: Rube's journal

Post by abn »

Hi Rube - still chiming in to follow up on your very motivating journal. I hope to emulate it over the next 10 or so years. We'll see how it goes :)

I know you wrote about your first rental investment years ago - it is something i hope to do some day in the future as well. Would you mind sharing some of your thoughts back then when your first decided to invest in rental homes - what was your concerns about it and what kind of precautions did you take in order to make a good deal that fitted your style of living well? And maybe a little about how your think about it now. What should someone who never invested in rentals before know - and what didn't turn out as bad as you might have fightened beforehand?

Keep up the good work and thanks for your time!

rube
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Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

61 days = 43 work days (Mo-Fri) target
Emotional Recently something happened, I prefer to keep personal what it is exactly, but I am feeling down at the moment. I hope it will be better soon, but I don't know yet.

Work I didn't send in my resignation letter or discussed going officially part time. But since I have a lot of holidays left, I did requested to have 1 day a week off for the next 4 months and have three weeks summer holiday in August. Basically that means, I will work at least 5.5 weeks longer than my target, but I'll work kind of parttime at 4 days a week. We'll see how May goes and how COVID-19 develops and what effect it will have on my/our decisions regarding work.

Renters We have new renters for the main appartement where the original renters had difficulty paying their rent and were no longer living there as they went back to their home country. All in all it will cost maybe 1 tot 1.5 month rent which is fine.

Financially We did not spend a lot in April and we received two small bonuses. Saved a lot and the market was fairly okay for us. NW is still growing as before (or even more). We have too much cash, but everything is, or at least feels, (still) expensive to me. I bid on another apartment but we didn't get it.


@ABN
Would you mind sharing some of your thoughts back then when your first decided to invest in rental homes - what was your concerns about it and what kind of precautions did you take in order to make a good deal that fitted your style of living well?
First I did research: investigated the market, the regulations, visited open house viewings, normal viewings. What is happening, what is allowed, what isn't, renters protection etc. I made dozens, if not more, of calculations. And with calculations I mean also different scenario's, and especially what if the SHTF scenario's and what would be my loss? Like: the first renter is not paying for a whole year before I can get him evicted and after eviction the place is a mess and the market plummet X% but I want/need to sell. So you lose your closing costs, eviction costs, holding costs (i.e. HOA, taxes), cost to repair, cost to sell (against lower price) etc. So the chance this is all happening simultaneously is low, but the financial outcome is likely the worst. Am I willing to take that risk? If yes, continue. Of course you need also to be prepared to handle other "risks", which might have less financial risk but can happen more often, i.e. leakages - renters changing more frequently than hoped etc. Some of such "risks" can also be mitigated by only buying certain type of properties, only targeting certain renters, outsourcing more.

So basically I determined for our first rental the downside is limited to say 30-40K maximum in TSHTF scenario 1-2 years. But if everyting goes alright, we make about 6% net cashflow on our investment. 5 years later and It turned out to be right and we're making now more net chasflow (rent increased) and the value increased a lot. Though, the value is like with stocks - until you have sold it is not in your back-account.

And maybe a little about how your think about it now.
If you place me 5 years back, I would have bought much, much more (with leverage). And I would have also outsourced much more. And I would have sold some last year/this year to lock-in the gains of the exceptional price increases of Real Estate and deleverage the portfolio. And I would have been now a multi millionaire :lol:
Looking back, I was probably too cautious and I over estimated the risks. But risks are personal and also depend on how much you know. And I learned a long the way so maybe that reduced the risk along the way also.

What should someone who never invested in rentals before know - and what didn't turn out as bad as you might have fightened beforehand?
We never had any issues with payments from renters until last month due to COVID-19. This is better than expected. Also the "work" is not so much, I had expected it would be more, especially for the student rentals. That said, especially if you get more rentals, there will be work and there will be a point you will have more going on at an inconvenient time. So you need to think about this - outsourcing is a way to deal with it. A certain mindset (it is just money - sometimes not everything is perfect) can help also.

What you should know: it is not like a stock which you can buy and sell within seconds. It is a longer term investment, already alone due to buying and selling costs you generally hold it for at least a couple of years (unless you're flipping houses - different strategy). It comes with certain responsibilities (towards the renter, the HOA). It has fixed costs. You should know or at least think about it, if this type of investing fits with you. There are many ways to invest in real estate, so it very much depends on your strategy what you need to know and also how much do you already know? Bigger Pockets is a good resource to learn - but you'll need to convert it to your region (of investing).

In every market there are always opportunities, but the market I am operating in has become very expensive. Unless you put in a lot of effort, it is very hard to buy real estate with a decent return and acceptable risk. Whereby the decent return and acceptable risk is very personal of course. Last couple of years I see people buying and leveraging a lot. Those who bought 5 years ago have now again plenty of margin, even when they leveraged a lot. Those that bought the last 6 months and leveraged to the max, their margin is pretty thin at the moment. It might play out okay, but perhaps not. See again my comment about "looking back'.

abn
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Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2018 5:38 pm

Re: Rube's journal

Post by abn »

Hi Rube

Thank you for these insights and taking time to give thorough answers. I'm looking into this style of investments as a way to 'lock' ROI on my investments compared to stocks that go up and down. Of course this is in the perfect scenario where renters stay for a long time and never skip a payment. I'll also miss some of the good years in the stock market, but i hope this will be a more reliable passive income that fits my style better.

My plan right now is saving enough to buy my first unit - will probably be 2-3 years before that will happen, but im planning to prepare/"practice" as much as i can in the mean time. I'v been thinking it would be nice to have it as my side-job but you talk about outsourcing more. Do you think of administration or also reparing/fixing the place up before renting out?

One of my concerns is that i probably won't be able to buy something close to where i live now as prices are insane. We're talking 7-800.000 euros for a 2 bedroom apartment. That means i will have to buy something 1-3 hours away, which could be problematic while working a lot and maybe not being able to take a day off in order to fix something urgent.

Well, i guess i have some time to think about it with prices and my current savings rate :) thanks once again!

rube
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Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

57 days = 41 work days (Mo-Fri) target

@ABN: because of tax reasons, it is better to not do to much yourself so it will be part of the "wealth tax" instead of "income tax". Apart from that, I don't mind to do some work on it, but I prefer to do it on my terms. I don't want to have too much stress about it, i.e. when I am on holiday and a renter have a leakage or need something else urgent, I prefer someone else will take care of it.
Good luck in exploring the different options.

Emotional: I feel much better, I hope it stays like this (with effort). And thanks J_ for reaching out.

Clothes: I bought a new winter jacket. I was already looking for some time for a new one, my previous one was 9 years old and worn down.
I wanted to have a good one: warm, good pockets, useful for multiple circumstances, good against wind and rain. But obviously I didn't want to pay too much. So end of season, I was able to get one with 40% discount compared to the normal price. I expect it will help me to enjoy (or less dislike) colder weather for a long time. Might be another 6-7 months before I can use it :lol: .

rube
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Re: Rube's journal

Post by rube »

54 days = 38 work days (Mo-Fri) target

Rentals
Had a holiday Tuesday and worked in one of the apartments to make it ready for the new renters.
There was a strange smell in the bathroom, I hope it is/was just from not using it for a couple of weeks and there is no leakage causing mould. There were signs from an earlier leakage, but I thought that was solved. I'll finish the work this weekend and will make also a small hole in to check on any (obvious) current leakage in the floor. If I can't find anything, but the smell stays, also after cleaning and using for a couple of weeks, I will need to hire a specialized company. I hope it is nothing and just goes away after usage and cleaning.

house - solar panels
Last weekend I continued with the preparations for the solar panels: removed one sky light. DD of 14 y/o asked me earlier if she could help me, so I showed her how to use a drill, electrical saw and let her do some of the small stuff and together we removed the skylight and closed the roof.
It was helpful for me and good for her to learn. I Also changed the location of a ventilation pipe. Still some work on other pipes to be done. I also need to figure out how the cable from the roof can run to the fuse box and to get the lead flashing around the chimney repaired. Companies seem still extremely busy or they are asking (in my view) ridiculous prices. If the Chimney would have been in another spot, I might have done it myself, but I am not fond on working on this location on the roof, so still need to find a solution for this.

The company that had good prices for the solar panels and installation is kind of a webshop + installation service. But in order to make an arrangement for the installation, I needed to order the materials and pay 100% of the materials in advance, only the installation part could be paid afterwards. And although they seem financially healthy, I am not going to fork over 12.5K and hope they will be on our doorstep in 6-7 weeks or so with all the materials to install all.

A possibility was to go and pick up the goods and pay on the spot and in hindsight I maybe should have done that, but I decided to split the order in three parts to still hit the threshold of free delivery, but limit risk of non-delivery. But they're crazy busy and looks like they will now deliver end of next week. If the other 2 deliveries will also take that long it might still take a long time before all is up on the roof and working. On the other hand, I also still have plenty of work to do so maybe I should just take it as it goes.

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