What about washing windows to earn some extra PI money?

[Julian]

A couple I know have a relatively new two story house. They complained to me that the guy who was cleaning their windows no longer does (can't remember the reason - think he moved away). They were paying $90 for this. They said they would gladly pay $100, perhaps $110. I asked how long it took. They said about an hour and a half for inside and out.

$100 for an hour and a half represents 66.67 per hour (less GST if registered). Take into account travelling time and possibly $50 per hour is achievable. This seems to me like a really good way of boosting one's income for very little outlay, which is often handy - particularly in the early days of being a property investor.

Just a thought.

Julian.

[CJ]

What would Green acres cost (or hire a hubby or other franchise). I would have thought it was less than $60 ph??

Does anyone know there charge out rates.

[Julian]

Who knows what the other franchises would charge, but if they are doing multi tasks perhaps the service might not be as good - I don't know.

This was mentioned to get forumites (particularly those struggling to get their first deposits together) thinking about extra cash opportunities. There are probably hundreds out there, and for very little outlay some young entrepreneurs can be pulling in some good extra dollars. Even if they only earn $40 per hour this is as good as many tradesment earn with years of experience and a van load of expensive tools - and it can be done in week-ends or after hours.

Julian.

[drelly]

Window washing is a big business in the UK and they can make serious money! Since houses in England are often closer to the road and population density is higher, windows get much dirtier than in most places here. However, things are changing...

[Julian]

How about some more ideas for making good money with relatively little outlay - some of the forumites who are just getting started might like to earn some extra dollars to help get their portfolios rolling.
Julian

[Fritz]

making some quick cash

Julian, excellent thread.

1) we have IHC where we live and they raise plants to provide work and make some money. They are excellent quality, and low price. You can get them on sale of return, open a stall on the local market with 150% mark up, still beat the nurseries, and offer low cost quality plants.

2) Given up, but doing up house gardens for houses for sale is excellent. Tools: spade, rake, shovel, knife, buy weedmat from warehouse, plants fom IHC, cobbles and bark bulk delivered on site, make an all up price rather then hourly, bingo! You also get to see a lot of houses.

3) I used to raise expensive palms and cabbage trees. Wilderness garden where I lived had literally hundreds self seedlings, pot, water, sell. They fetch good money and as they are raised in the town you live do well as opposed to brought in from out of town from warmer/different climate and die. Great selling difference.

4) Someone I know picks up large palms (we are talking 4m and up) with a pick up truck/tow truck in exchange for putting down a lawn (ie nearly free),as many big plants have outgrown the garden and house and owners just want rid of them. He on-sells them for a bundle with a guarantee. OK, need a truck for this. Could go profit share with one?

5) This is real sad and gets me odd looks when I tell other people but every local tip that takes green waste is a gold mine. I dump a lot of green waste and especially Saturdays when everybody does their gardens, you have a look around from say 2pm when little gran and dad do their gardening, there are rhododendrons, camilias, trees, you name it, I have found it. I simply heave them on the truck, pot, sell, or use myself in gardens I am doing. Also, pongas who get dumped by the truck load and cost $10 in a garden centre a piece. Same goes for digger drivers, dingo drivers, and bobcat operators. Do a deal with them when they are clearing sites to pick up the plants which most owners discard. I know a spectactuar garden owned by a dingo driver.

What is a 2 meter Rhododendron worth? Name your price. What did it cost you? 1 minute looking, pot, compost. OK, $2. Most garden centres give away their plastics pots free if you ask nicely and smile a lot.


6) Opened a rental management/property improvement business who uses what we have learned and charge time challenged people a fee on their projects.

7) Property finder

I can keep going a while with this. There is money on the streets to be picked up, all you have to do is be imaginative and occasionaly get your hands dirty. Once you build up some money this way you can use your time wiser, but to get started you learn a wealth of knowledge on how to negotiate and sell stuff, and meet many interestig and colourful people.
You can only read so many books, but you got to get up and DO stuff to get ahead.

OK, bring on the tip jokes.

:-)

Fritz.

[dksnz]

One of my work mates had a guy clean all the windows on his North Shore, Auckland house last month. Part one storey on oneside, and two storey on the other due to land slope. House area around 1200 sq ft to upper level with basement/garage under smae floor area. The typical standard oblong 60's weatherboard house. Total cost to do all the windows - $40!!!!!! I was amazed. Funny thing was it cost him $45 last year??? I'll definatly use him myself - hope he's not reading this!?

[Julian]

Fritz,
With regard to your first suggestion it would be great if some of the IHC fundraisers picked up the mantle and ran with your very good suggestion.
Some great ideas.

Here's a challenge: If you're reading this thread how about giving us at least one good money earning idea before moving on to the next thread - YES, YOU! Even an idea you might think is a little bit dumb could be turned around and tweaked and made into a winner, or perhaps it's better than you think as it stands.

Julian.

[fudosan]

Get up early Saturday morning and find some interesting stuff at garage sales for a dollar and sell for $20 or $30 on TradeMe.

[Gerrard]

Had to think about it for a while:

1) Buy and resell cars. A friend has done this a few times making $300 - $2,000 a pop. That was on cars he bought from $300 to $3,000. Nat a bard mark up for a quick clean and the odd repair.

I think you can only do 5 a year now before you have to be registered as a dealer.

2) An Internet business. Ok, some specialty nouse may be needed here, but there are a lot of people who have created niche businesses on the Internet. Best option is to sell information, not products that require shipping, storage, handling etc. Examples of selling information include weather, immigration services, news.

3) Graeme Fowler has talked about the $10 challenge. Start with $10 and trade things to double it. Double your $10 17 times and you have $1 million.

Gerrard

[Julian]

Got to be a few more than this.

What about the worlds oldest profession? I knew a girl (many moons ago) who regularly earned over $1000 per night - none of it from me I might add.

What about growing fresh vegetables or fruit.

Here's one: When I was a teenager just entering the workforce (a couple of milleniums ago, now) a mate of mine wasn't sure what field of endeavour he should apply himself to, so in the meantime he rented an acre of land out the back of Howick for next to nothing (now it's all built up), borrowed a few dollars from his old man and put in strawberry plants. It required just a couple of hours each day to do a bit of weeding, watering and the like, and two or three visits a day to collect the money from the honesty boxes. At the end of the season he paid his Dad back and paid cash for a top-of-the-range '67 Mercury Couger XR7 (a Mustang with dress sense). That was such a cool car, when the rest of us had old bombs. By applying his creative juices he leapfrogged the rest of us - by a country mile! The only trouble is the cops were always pulling him up wanting to do a search of the car - suspecting he was a drug dealer, him being a pimply 17 year old with a far better car than any of the cops probably had. He was as cool as a cucumber and always refused their request to search, inviting them to get a search warrant if they wished, but reminding them that owning an expensive car was NOT due cause for suspicion.

(Sorry about going on and on like that - it was only supposed to be a couple of sentences, but I got caught on a wave of nostalga.)

Back on the subject at hand...

What about busking? - better money than you might imagine!

C'mon forumites, being a property investor requires creative thinking. Let's hear some more ideas.

Julian.

[tamara]

I know of someone who decided to clean stoves to make a bit of cash. They sure had plenty of customers and got very efficient at doing the job.

Tamara

[beama]

Well I have recently purchased a cleaning business which I am taking over this week. It doesn't sound like great exciting work I know but hey everyone needs premises, homes, rentals etc. cleaned don't they and the $$ is very good too!

If anyone needs dirty rentals cleaned in the ChCh area please feel free to contact me, [email protected] sorry if I am not allowed to do this kind of advertising my apologises.

[artemis]

How about a different take on online auctions ....

Have a look at www.oneway.co.nz

It's an online auction site where you can refer new members and build a downline which provides passive income from any sales your downline makes. Downlines are sometimes put up for sale/auction as well.

I bought a downline of 500 people for $900 - might sound a lot but the return on investment is spectacular. Plus it grows organically as downline members encourage their friends and family to join up and start buying and selling. The main risk is that the site folds but this is becoming less of a risk as time goes on - 22,000 auctions listed, growing fast, just opened in the UK and Australia is next).

Of course you can sell things there as well! It has some features (eg automatic relisting) which makes it very suitable for an online specialist store. For example, there are a lot of stamp sellers on the site. One recent addition is Russian Books - currently 600 listings for mostly Russian language books. A good example of specialist wares where the potential buyers are spread all over the country, and indeed the world.

[Cliffy]

What about offering your services to assist other property investors in renovating properties.

That way you can learn property tips while earning...