I've got around 35k right now that I'm thinking of putting into something for the house. I have a 1650 sq foot house, 4 bed 2 bath, laundry on bottom floor. My girlfriend is 6 months from finishing her nursing program.
The foundation needs to be wrapped. I've decided I'm going to do this in the Summer myself; so some of the cash I was going to spend on a contractor I can spend on something else.
In addition, I put in new flooring, redid the bathroom, and did new paint, baseboards and doors in the basement. These got ruined by sewage and will be covered by insurance - the estimate is about 18-19k.
This is likely not our forever home or our forever city. We plan on exploring interior B.C where the weather is better and we're closer to friends and family. These houses in Vernon, Kelowna, Kamloops, etc., are around $500k+ for anything we're interested in (1600+, 4 bedrooms, garage). together we'll make around 130k/year; not including overtime from both of us, and this will only go up as we go up wage steps.
My plan was to build a garage at the side of my house. I love woodworking and am sick of pulling out all my tools and project then having to rush them away before a rain. In thinking about what would make more money in the long-term, my house makes a reasonably good rental. Basement suites here go for $900+/month; and since I'm getting 18k towards the basement, I could make it into a suite with the same reno company, who have a good reputation.
I don't know if I want to be a landlord, so I'm thinking I would get a rental company to deal with this. I bought the house 2 years ago for about 200k. I'd like to hear opinions on picking a garage or putting in a suite. My thinking is the suite is definitely less fun, and we cannot rent it out while we're still living in the house (tools, storage, drum set), but once we move this is a great long-term plan. On the other hand, both of us would get good use out of a garage for woodworking. We are tentatively planning on only staying a couple more years in this house. Mortgage is up in 2023.
Just looking for opinions and considerations. I'm leaning towards the suite. I'm finding the prospect a bit exhausting as I've done a lot of renovations & repairs since I bought it.