I own several places in my neighbourhood. The rentals give me a good return and on top of that I have capital appreciation going for me. What I do is look for an old rundown place on a large allotment, pull it down, and put up two or three townhouses. I take care to make them good quality and after I've finished I'll sell one (or two, if I built three) and keep the other for rental. In effect, the sales fund the actual purchase and building and I'm left with a new house for gratis.
My personal abode is a big old sprawling place that I inherited from my parents. Sometime in the future I'll probably pull it down and do the multiple units trick, but right now I'm quite happy living there. Because it is such big place I take in boarders, which defrays the cost of maintaining the place.
I'm situated reasonably close to the university and I make it a point to try to rent my rooms to students. I choose them carefully as I don't want a continuous party going. I want hard working students who are willing to study and get their degree.
Right now among my boarders I had a young married couple, Allie and Simon. They weren't at the university. Simon is gainfully employed with quite a good job and Allie is looking for work. They owned a block of land and were building on it, only staying with me until they could move in.
Yesterday Simon had come to see me to pay their board and he was terribly apologetic. They'd had an unexpected payment at the house and he was just a little short on the rent. He would, he assured me, make it up on his next pay day. I just sort of grunted and nodded, giving him a slight frown to indicate that this had better not become a habit. (Gotta watch 'em sometimes. If they think they can get away with it you can whistle for your money.)
I was sitting in my office the next day doing some paperwork when Allie came bouncing in, banging the front door behind her.
"Damn it, Allie," I yelled. "Close the door like a normal person. All you have to do is put the wood in the hole. Not ram it in with all the finesse of a rhinoceros charging."
She just laughed at me.
"Guess what?" she said.
"The builder called and said you can move in?"
"No," she began but I promptly took another guess.
"Trump has resigned?"
"I wish, but no," she said with a laugh.
"Little green men from Mars have landed?"
"I thought men from Mars were supposed to be red?" she suggested.
"No. That's a base calumny cast upon them by Venusians who are remarkably colour-blind. Okay, I've had my guesses. What?"
"I met Dianne at the mall for lunch and we went to the club to have it. On the way out I stuck a dollar in the pokies machine and I won over seven hundred dollars. Just like that. I couldn't believe it."
"Well done," I congratulated her. "And the first thing you've done is rush here to see me so you could pay me the outstanding board money. Very thoughtful of you."
"What?" she said, sounding shocked.
"You knew that Simon came up a bit short with the board money this week, didn't you?" I reminded her.
"Yes," she said with a nod. "The builder is ahead of schedule and we had to come up with a progress payment ahead of schedule."
"Right. That left Simon a little short for board and now you're here to pay it, right?"
"No. Wrong. This is my money," she protested, holding her purse tight as though I was going to snatch it away.
"Ah, you're married. Doesn't that mean the money is as much Simon's as yours? I'm quite sure that he'd like to clear the debt."
"But I won it. It's mine. I want to spend it. There're things I need to buy."
"I'm sure there are, but Simon wasn't short by much. You can pay it and still have lots of money to spend."
"But - but this is my money," she pointed out once again, seeming quite upset that her money should go towards something so crass as paying a bill.
"And the board is also your responsibility," I pointed out equably, but she wasn't having a bar of it.
"Simon pays the bills," she said, speaking carefully to make sure I understood.
"Indeed, and as soon as he gets his hands on that little lot I'm sure he'll be here to pay it," I agreed, "but why wait when you and the money are right here."