Given that you have construction skills, you might be a good candidate for real estate invest. Could you buy a multi-family for the 800k? That would give you some pace to live plus income. Of course, you do need a plan for where to live. The "renting bits out" is quite a bit more convenient when there are actual dwelling units involved.
The house I have now has potential for adding value. I looked into it and I can build a 700 square foot house out the back as well as keep the existing house.
Existing house has a basement suite that has been there for years but recently picked up by city bylaw enforcement. So I'm in process of getting suite authorized.
If I did build a house and authorize suite Ill have 3 addresses on one lot, which would be worth a lot.
The only thing is that I've had that place 9 years and worked a lot on it and put money into it and so far never had any real time pay back from it. Though I have a ton of equity.
Start building the small house and another year and more equity and still nothing in my pocket... if at top of cycle could put all that hard work into it and might not be worth more that it is now if market has topped out.
Tough call for me as I'm definitely the kind of person that would like to chill out and have options to not work so much. But also could build that small house myself in a year from start to finish and if sold then would put another 100k in my pocket (or not if market drops)
A true story here.. My good friend bought a house 10 years back and I did the renovation on it. He bought for 850k he sold it 18 months ago as he was in a financial jam for 1.8 million. He sent me a link last night to a new listing for the house, the house is being listed with development plans for the house to be built out into 4 units, and the selling price is just shy of 5 million bucks !!!!! My friend is going nuts.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/davidfine2/vancouver-real-estate_b_9201620.html