"Yes," Jake said, taking in the view again. "I do." He turned to Jill, who was still admiring the view. "What do you think?" he asked her.
"You already know my views on this whole subject," she said.
"Yes, I do," Jake agreed. "But other than that, what do you think?"
"I think you need to consider what Mr. Williams just said about no one being able to afford the land."
"What do you mean?" Jake asked.
"Suppose you go forth with this plan," she said. "You pay two hundred thousand dollars for the land and probably another hundred thousand bringing in services and making it suitable for construction. Assuming you use local labor and materials, you could probably get your house built for somewhere around four hundred thousand."
"That all sounds about right," Jake said.
"So, basically, by the time you're ready to take up occupancy in the house, you'll be about seven hundred thousand dollars in. If something were to go wrong with your income stream at this point, that is the absolute minimum you would have to sell the property for in order to break even." She turned to Williams. "Mr. Williams, how difficult would it be for Jake to unload such a property at such a price if he had to do it in a hurry?"
It was clear that Williams did not really want to answer this question — after all, it could be detrimental to his sale — but he was ethical enough to be truthful. "It would be very difficult," he admitted. "There are precious few in the Christchurch area who could afford such an extravagance. And of those who could, it is doubtful that many would want to. You might be able to sell it to someone from North Island, someone from Wellington or Auckland who wishes a summer home near the Alps, but even that is doubtful. Your best prospect for a fair market value sale would be to someone similar to yourself, Mr. Kingsley — a wealthy foreigner who has developed a love for South Island. And finding such a person would undoubtedly take a few months, possibly even a year or more."
"I see," Jake said thoughtfully. "So, in other words, I would be hanging my ass out into the wind by moving forward on this."
Williams blinked. "Uh... I'm not exactly familiar with that expression, Mr. Kingsley, but if it means you would be taking a risk, then yes, that is correct."
Jake nodded. "Well, my ass has been hanging in that wind for most of the past ten years now," he said. "Might as well add a little more windburn to those cheeks. I want this land. Let's start the ball rolling today, shall we?"
"As you wish, Mr. Kingsley," Williams said with a smile while Jill hid a frown.
Chapter 16c
Buying land, even in one's own country, was not simply a matter of walking into a real estate office, writing a check, signing a few documents, and then walking back out again with ownership papers in hand. When such a purchase was being made in a foreign country, things became even more complex. Though to Jill, Jake seemed to be acting on foolish impulse, in reality he planned to proceed very carefully.
The first things Jake wanted done were to make sure of all the legalities involved in developing the land once it was purchased. He wanted to know that the power company would string electricity to him, that he would be allowed to dig wells and install a septic system. Most of all, he wanted to be sure that there really were no restrictions on the building of an actual house on the property, that Williams wasn't trying to rook him into buying a big chunk of environmentally protected land where building was forbidden. He wanted a survey done of the land itself so he would know its exact boundaries and its exact terrain features. He then wanted geologists and insurance specialists to look over the property to assess how vulnerable it was to landslides or flooding.
Assuming all of this checked out favorably, Jake would go forth with the purchase of the property and then move onto step two of the project: the actual design and construction of the house. Jake knew that word would soon pass throughout the South Island and particularly in the Christchurch area, that a famous rock musician had bought a huge chunk of hillside property and was planning to build a mansion there (although he wasn't really going for mansion at all, a nice three to four thousand square foot single-level would do nicely). Some people would be thrilled about this, others, perhaps even the majority, would be resentful. Jake hoped to mitigate this resentment to some degree by using nothing but locals for skilled and unskilled labor. He wanted a Christchurch architecture firm to design the house and Christchurch construction workers to build it. He wanted Christchurch electricians and Christchurch plumbers and Christchurch well diggers and Christchurch septic installers. All of the building materials that could feasibly be purchased from Christchurch sources, would be purchased from them. And, of course, since that was part of the plan, someone had to look into the reliability and reputation off all of these Christchurch designers and builders and material supply networks.
There was very much to be done and Jake only had three days before he needed to start back to Los Angeles. Three days was not even enough time to get the first phases of the land purchase rolling. For that reason, Jill would be left behind to act as his agent in all manners related to the property acquisition. She wasn't terribly thrilled about this — Jill was very much a home-town girl who disliked even traveling to Los Angeles once a quarter to meet with Jake and Pauline — but Jake was making it well worth her while to stay for six or seven weeks in the southern hemisphere during the winter. He was putting her up in the best hotel in Christchurch, giving her unlimited use of a luxury rental car, paying for all of her meals, and paying her a thousand dollars a week above her normal salary.
"You'll keep me updated on your progress?" Jake asked her (again!) as she dropped him off at the Christchurch airport on Wednesday morning.
"I'll call you weekly," she promised. "Even more if something warrants it."
"That's my twin," Jake said with a smile. He gave her a hug and then picked up his bags and headed for check-in.
He flew back to Auckland and then waited in the first class lounge for two hours until his next flight was called. Because of the vagaries of the air travel system in this part of the world, Jake had been unable to secure a non-stop flight back to Los Angeles for this particular day. The next non-stop from Auckland to LAX was not scheduled to depart until Sunday night, which would have gotten him home mid-afternoon on Monday, jet-lagged, burned-out, and six hours late for rehearsal. The only flights available mid-week went first to Nadi, Fiji and required a three-hour layover before getting on another ten and a half hour flight to LAX, making for a seventeen hour trip — assuming no delays. For this reason, Jake had decided to break up the return flight a little. He had booked a suite at a resort in Nadi so he could stay overnight and then fly direct to LAX in the morning.
His plane landed in Nadi at 1:30 PM, local time. Jake left the airport and jumped in a taxi. The driver was a dark-skinned Fijian wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. His English was heavily accented but understandable.
"Where to, my friend?" he asked.
"Sheraton Fiji Resort," Jake told him. "Do you take American money?"
"American, French, Australian, I take it all," he said.
"Very good," Jake said, sitting back in the back seat and taking in the scenery as they left the airport. Jake would have thought that this was the off-season for a tropical resort — it was mid-August after all — but the streets were very crowded with tourists as they slowly made their way through the city. He asked the driver about this.
"Off season for Americans and Europeans maybe," the driver told him. "On season for Australians and New Zealanders and South Americans. Remember, when it summer in America, it winter in Australia."