Rental Property progress - two steps forward, one step back

No luck selling our rental property yet - only a few expressions of interest during the past 6 months, and only at a substatial discount to what I estimate to be fair value, so we weren't interested in accepting the offers as we aren't in any particular rush to sell the property. Now that the peak spring/summer selling season is over, we don't expect to be able sell it until next spring. Fortunately the new tenants seem quite good, although a bit tardy with paying the rent on time or in full - always a risk when you have several young adults sharing a house and each responsible for part of the rent. Their lease doesn't expire until the end of the year, so that should be one less headache during 2013.

The old kitchen sink started leaking again - I've previously repaired a crack in the drainage board with 'liquid metal' sealer, and the tap washers had been replaced and the tap reseated several times, so this time we decided to replace the entire sink and tapset. A new double sink assembly cost $149 (some similar sized 'designer' kitchen sinks cost up to $1000 or more!), and a mixer tap with swivel spout cost $75 (again, some 'designer' taps can cost ridiculous sums of money), so the capital cost is very modest. The new sink is not the exact same size as the sink it is replacing - about 3cm more front-to-back, and about 20cm less side-to-side as it only has a draining board on one side rather than both sides. Hopefully the older benchtop is in reasonable condition under the old draining board, so the plumber will be able to just cut as slightly larger hole for the double sinks and leave more of the benchtop exposed. But I hate to think how much the plumber will charge to install the new sink - aside from the larger cut-out and a couple of extra PVC fittings to suit the double sink, the old sink had its rear 'lip' embedded under a wood panel beneath the kitchen window, so there will be some fidding required to remove the old sink before installing the new one... perhaps I should ask the plumber to provide a quote before giving him the go-ahead.

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