By now you are well on your way to getting your recent purchase over the line! Whoop, Whoop!
We all have a penchant for certain aspects of property investing, some love the numbers, others network, many of us get into the nitty gritty of the project. One of the biggest costs, especially during this time of rising material costs and competent trades is the refurbishment bill.
Having recent attended a great two-day training event, credit to Paul Tinker, I wanted to share some of those learnings. Those two days have given me the opportunity to step back and reflect, even when feeling the pressure to push forward on our recent project. If you are looking at a new project or even struggling to see the wood for the trees, these may help.
- Undertake and understand your Survey – if you are unsure ask the surveyor and get further investigations undertaken.
- Develop a project specification – there is no point spending £1000’s on bathroom tiles in a £40k property.
- Establish a detailed schedule of work with key milestones – this has caught me out before with overrun and being on the back foot, even though my background is project management
- Calculate your build costs accurately and consistently revisit them – I believe continuous learning is the key to development and improvement, nibbling away to make small improvements while maintaining standards is SO important.
- Go out to tender – quite a formal expression, in layman’s terms that often means getting trades / companies to “give you a price”.
- Establish how you are going to “procure” these services – set out your payment terms and expectations, when you pay your suppliers and how (not cash in hand)…………
- Engage your chosen suppliers and contract them onto the project, ensure you have an agreed set of terms and work to be undertaken. You need a frame of reference.
- Efficiently manage the project – factor in travel time, use of a project manager, establish methods of communication, how variations are managed and agreed. We have used WhatsApp to great effect on Project D.
- Check you are compliant, have adequate insurances in place to cover work being undertaken, think risk.
- Create procedures and systemise your approach. After all, hopefully, this will not be your one and only project.
A challenge I know – working on your business is not the same as working in your business.
Good luck with your project, any questions please ask.
