Autumn weather, cold wind, sunny spells between quite heavy showers. I hunkered down all day except for a walk with Bangle around rthe perimiter of the Regional Dog Park.

Gill & Ben Settling In on the Kapiti Coast – warmer and less windy than Wellington

Gill & Ben have been looking for a new house for several years because they are not getting younger and the steep slopes without drive-on access at house level are becoming impractical. Nothing suitable comes up except that the Kapiti Coast is their most favoured location in the Wellington area.

So this year they changed tack and started looking for retirement village options. After much research they found that four villages on Kapiti Coast were most likely to have suitable villas.

The villages are a capitalist’s dream. Most retirement villages in New Zealand use Occupation Right Agreements, basically a licence to occupy not ownership. Then for villas, such as those in the Wellington region, you may need to pay around a million dollars.

And when you vacate, to a more spiritual place or because your level of care has increased say, they give you back 80% and you are most likely not going to benefit from any capital gain from the re-sale of the property. Such generosity.

Anyway, I digress, G&B put their names down for four villages being warned that the waiting lists were long but occasionally a villa suiting one’s specified requirements may become available. Which it did.

In this case, lucky G&B, one came up and it was a bit special. This was the villa built by the developer for himself while he built the other villas in the village. A better site, slightly bigger, more garden, more secluded etc. As right as it ever will be for G&B. And it was in the process of major renovation.

So they now have sold their house on the steep slopes of Seatoun Heights. They have been preparing for this moment for years so have physically downsized much of their possessions already.

Meanwhile the village needed a commitment and in order to secure the sale they offered generous settlement terms. G&B’s lawyer says they are seeing villages setting up deals as they need to sell their units and in the slow housing market people are finding it hard to sell their homes.

Interesting wheeze now came into play. If G&B payed $50,000 straight away, last year, on top of the $5000 deposit, they essentially had settlement immediately. The capital balance was payable on sale of their house or in 3 months time which ever came first.

The village lawyers assessed the risk and were sure that the sale of G&B’s house would exceed the required settlement balance; the village meanwhile was not receiving the weekly fees until G&B moved in but this doesn’t actually cost the village a penny. Smart financial wizardry.

Mother And Daughter (Maybe) Grey Heron On Stopbank Alongside Dog Park

Oak Avenue Weather:__℃—__℃ no rain [?]