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Don’t Hire Another Builder Until You’ve Read This ……..

Hiring and managing builders can sometimes be daunting. However, if you know the proper steps of hiring as well as the policies of managing, you will realize in the end that hiring and managing builders is as simple as entering into a relationship that you would have to maintain till the very end. Below are some of the things you may need to remember when you want to hire a builder and the things you have to do when you find the right one.

1. Recommendations

Ask for any recommendation from experts and official bodies. This can be done by going through government and private institutions dealing with construction – as with many things a google search will pull out several bodies that you may contact. Ask for the names of builders who are known for their quality of work. References can also be taken from friends or family members. You could also speak to contractors of buildings which are under construction within the community – walk around your local streets and approach builders in that area and ask to see the work they are doing at present.

2. Conduct phone interviews

Once you have a shortlist of builders, conduct some inquiries. Inquiries can be made as to the types of project they accept and current projects they are working on. References should be obtained from past clients. If the builders are involved in subcontracting, the terms of employment should be obtained. The acquired information should help determine the competency and ability of the builders to undertake your project.

3. Meet the builders personally

From the interviews conducted, select three builders and meet them personally. They must be asked to provide estimates and completion timescales for your project. Their answers must be satisfactory and leave no room for doubt.

4. Confirm the facts

Interview previous clients of the builder to confirm everything he has told you. Ask specific questions regarding past projects in terms of quality, duration, timescales and prices. If the builder is currently working on a job, you may want to go and visit him on location. This will show you the work attitude of the workers towards the property and the quality of their work.

Always ask the builder if it’s ok for you to see his existing jobs – any good builder wont mind – once your potential builder has agreed to this, pay him unannounced visits on site.

5. Evaluate the bids

You should ask the builders to give you a breakdown of the expenses covering the project. This way you will know exactly what costs what and where you can save money if need be.

Never choose a builder based on price alone – evaluate all factors before making a decision.

6. Make a systematic method of payment

The method of payment employed will determine the contactor’s attitude with respect to finances and work. Don’t ever pay a builder all the monies prior to him starting the work. It is better to pay in stages as various components of the job are completed.

7. Quality of the work and competency of the project must be the ultimate goals

These goals can be achieved through proper communication between the owner of the property and the builders. The competency of the builders must be proven in order to ensure the quality of the project. It must not be sacrificed in exchange for cheap labour cost.

8. The terms and conditions of the agreement must be in a written contract.

To avoid conflict, have a written contract drawn up with the builder. The following terms must be reflected in the contract; manner and method of payment, duration of the project, materials needed, and the security of the builders or contractors in case of non- payment of the owner after the completion of the project.

I always like to add in penalty payment terms, for example, the builder will be fined an x amount if he over exceeds his deadline by 1 week, 2 weeks etc.  This will cause the builder to get his act together and deliver what he promised within budget and timescale.

 

 

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Top Kitchen Design Tips to Increase The Value Of Your Property

 

Property Investing Kitchen Design A well designed kitchen can greatly enhance the appeal and hence value of your property. When developing a property, you need to have a good plan in place. Each room in your property needs to have its own work schedule and budget. This is especially true for the kitchen which in a lot of properties is the most popular room in the house.

When designing your kitchen, you must consider:

1. storage space

How many cabinets are needed for the size of the room? How many shelves are required in the cabinets? What will be the locations of these cabinets?

You must also decide how these cabinets will fit around essential appliances in the kitchen.

2. lighting

The kitchen needs to be bright and airy. A dark and musty kitchen is not only unattractive but can also be unhygienic.

Kitchens need specific lighting for the purposes of food preparation. Ambient lighting serves as general lightning that gives the overall kitchen illumination. The best thing to use here is some sort of fluorescent tubing arrangement.

You can obtain direct lighting, for example aimed at the cooker and kitchen sink, by using conventional recessed lights, surface lights or light fixtures that are on a pendant or chain.

3. appliance space

In addition to the major appliances such as cookers and refrigerators, you also need to design in the locations of microwaves, televisions, telephones etc. These additional items can increase the beauty of your kitchen and help you to sell a lifestyle aimed at the upper end of the market.

4. the work triangle

This connects the three major points of a kitchen: the cooker, refrigerator, and the sink. The longer the distance between these points, the greater the effort required by the potential user.

There are 5 basic shapes to any kitchen design:

1. Single wall

The one-wall or single wall kitchen has all the work centres along one wall, which gives the least efficient plan. This type of kitchen is best for small homes and apartments.

2. L-shaped

The L-shaped kitchen gives a huge amount of continuous counter top space. In this style of kitchen, the work centre is on two adjacent walls, a natural triangle is formed and the traffic bypasses the work area. Space permitting, this design allows for the inclusion of a dining area.

3. U-shaped

In a U-shaped kitchen, a continuous countertop and storage system surrounds the cooker on three sides providing maximum efficiency. Traffic flows around the work area not through it and simplifies the cooking process.

4. G-shaped

This is generally a modification of the U-shape but adds an extra wall of cabinets and appliances as a peninsula or fourth partial wall.

5. Corridor/Galley

This plan offers a single cook-efficient workspace with closely grouped work centres on parallel walls.

When designing your kitchen, you should consider the above as a minimum to ensure a quality final product that not only provides a great working environment but also adds value to your property.

 

 

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More Red Tape For Landlords

 

This has been expected for some time now.  I just picked this up from the lovemoney website so you can read directly here.

Last week, Housing and Planning Minister John Healey announced that, from April, it will require any landlords who want to provide Houses In Multiple Occupation (HMO) to apply for planning permission first, before they build or convert a home.

This costly and time-consuming measure will put many off, and even those who jump through the hoops could be denied permission. There are fears that NIMBYs (people who say Not In My Back Yard) will oppose each and every HMO planning application to stop students, migrants or those on low incomes moving into their neighbourhood.

What exactly are the new rules?

Landlords will need to obtain planning permission where a material change of use will occur – which will now include renting a property to three or more occupants who are not members of the same family.

Healey also outlined proposals to give councils the right to introduce licensing schemes without seeking permission from central Government in so-called ‘hotspot areas’.

Local Authorities currently have to seek approval to introduce HMO licensing schemes, which require all private landlords with properties within the area to get a license.

The councils can also decide if the landlord is a ‘fit and proper’ person to manage their properties, impose conditions and standards on licenses and charge landlords a fee at their discretion.

Why the crack-down on houses in multiple occupation?

The Government says that a cluster of too many shared houses can cause problems, especially if let to short-term residents with little stake in the local community. It also claims tenants can also suffer from poor conditions and management of the properties by landlords.

The new rules are intended to help ‘stem the growth of large pockets of shared homes – which can change the balance and nature of communities.’ They will also aim to tackle these ‘pockets of unsafe and substandard accommodation’.

The Minister claimed that many towns and cities across the country have suffered the effects of a concentration of HMOs. Market, coastal and university towns have reported problems due to large student populations and HMOs.

And the reaction to the changes?

The National Landlords Association (NLA) condemned the changes saying they will reduce the supply of essential shared housing.

It claims that by making it more difficult and costly for landlords to provide this type of accommodation, the measures will reduce choice for tenants and increase pressure on local authority housing lists.

Plus it notes that last year’s Rugg Review, an independent review of the private-rented sector commissioned by the Government, dismissed these changes as an ‘extreme response’ which local authorities are ‘ill-equipped to handle.’

Of course you’d expect the NLA to be peeved at the measures, but it’s not just them. The British Property Federation, Residential Landlords Association, and National Union of Students have all rubbished the rules.

Many of the objections point to the fact that the Government seems to have bowed to a small number of people who have shouted very loudly about anti-social behaviour in areas with a high level of HMOs. The NIMBYs have won.

But by making it harder for landlords to offer these properties they will have to raise rents, which will drive students and migrants in to ghetto-style communities, a far cry from the Government’s stated policy of social integration.

Shared housing accounts for 20% of the private rented sector and plays a vital role in provided low cost housing for students, young professionals and those on low incomes.

The British Property Federation argues that a tiny fraction of places suffer from a high concentrations of HMOs and that using a broad brush approach to deal with different issues relating to anti-social behaviour makes no sense.

The NUS added that students contribute hugely to their local areas, not least by giving the local economy a massive boost. Indeed, small businesses in new HMO no-go areas would be likely to suffer.

Defending the Government

A massive 94% per cent of respondents to a Government consultation on this issue last year said they’d experienced problems of the effects of HMOs, including anti-social behaviour, litter, noise, and problems with parking. A whopping 84% of respondents agreed with the proposal that planning legislation should be amended to deal with the problems associated with high concentrations of HMOs.

Of course, this could well be a small minority of people punching above their weight. Perhaps there wasn’t enough landlord representation during the consultation process, for which they, and their trade bodies, only have themselves to blame.

Bound by red tape

However, the Government has a pretty good track record of being heavy handed with landlords over the last few years. They are already regulated with an estimated 50 Acts of Parliament and 70 sets of regulations governing the sector, and more on the on the way, according to Paragon Mortgages.

Just when they have got to grips with the tenancy deposit protection scheme, introduction of HMO rules, and the need to provide Energy Performance Certificates, more rules are proposed. These include a National Landlords Register, licensing all letting agents and statutory regulation of buy-to-let mortgage lending and advice, on top of the new regulations above.

On the one hand the Government says it wants to develop a vibrant rental market, but its approach of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut when it comes to regulation doesn’t support this aim, in my view.

Of course, protection is essential for tenants and affected homeowners, but landlords are being ever more tightly bound by red tape. A survey published last week showed that 60% are worried about the level of regulation.

The housing market needs a healthy private rented sector to help fill the enormous gap caused by insufficient housebuilding and the growing population.

 

 

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Good Bedroom Design Tips to Increase The Value Of Your Property

 

Property Investing Bedroom Design 1 The bedroom is a very important room that needs to be considered when developing property.

One of the most important aspects of good bedroom design is the colour. For a small room or one that doesn’t receive much natural light, the use of light colours such as white or magnolia is a must. Such colours create a sense of space.

If you are new to property developing, I would recommend you try experimenting with different colours in rooms of differing sizes. For example, for a short room where the room is very wide but not long, you could try a cool colour on the end wall and dark colours on all the sidewalls. This will cause the room to appear much deeper than it actually is.

Conversely, where the room is longer than it is wide, you could try painting the end wall with a dark colour and side walls with lighter colours. The net effect is a room that appears larger and squarer than it actually is.

For those property developers who are more adventurous, you could introduce some design and style into your bedrooms. Horizontal patterns with a light coloured back wall will make any room look spacious and long. Vertical patterns will create height, especially useful if your property has low ceilings for example as in period cottages.

Prior to putting your newly developed property on the market, you should consider furnishing the property. Unfortunately a lot of potential buyers have difficulty in picturing how empty property will look when furnished. Well furnished property thus achieves higher prices than their unfurnished counterparts.

When furnishing your newly renovated bedrooms, always use good quality furniture. For example, teak tables, teak chairs, deep plush seating and good quality beds which would match your potential market’s taste. If you do not own such furniture, you should definitely consider hiring something for the period during which the property is on the market.

If you are unsure of the type of furniture to use, you should visit other similar size properties in equivalent areas as your target market will already have furnished these properties to their own tastes.

Finally, when developing bedrooms, never lose sight of your budget. It’s easy to go overboard when it comes to expenditure, so you need to keep a strong grip on all expenses throughout the development.

Successful bedroom design and modelling is an art that takes experience to perfect. It is not as easy as randomly placing furniture in the room and hoping for the best. Furthermore, expensive designs don’t always work best. What is more important is for you to know who your target market is, and to design your bedroom according to their tastes, not yours.

When developing property, you should always try to make your house stand out from all the other newly developed properties of the same size and in similar locations. For example, you could have a teen bedroom in the house. You could try experimenting with colours too, for example pink for girls and blue for boys.

You may also want to stage a bedroom as an office by adorning it with high-end computer peripherals, and other modern technological equipment. Obviously, how far you go will depend on the size of your property. Having an office in the only bedroom of a one bed flat will not work!

Clever bedroom design and staging is definitely an art any good property developer needs to learn. Bedrooms designed and furnished according to the target market of that property can help you achieve a far higher price than you would otherwise have obtained.

 

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Use Good Bathroom Design To Add Value To Your Property

 

Property Investing Bathroom Design 1We all know that bathrooms form an important part of any property. A bathroom is one of the most frequently used rooms in the house. It is also one of the rooms most visible to guests. It can show visitors how lavish the occupants of that house are and also creates a great impression to the outside world.

If you take a look at any property magazine today, you will see that some bathroom design ideas are unique, some are simple and some can be quite outrageous.

 

Different people have different ways of designing their bathroom, no matter how beautiful or weird the outcome may be.

The basic design of a bathroom includes type, style and colour.

There are three basic types of bathroom:

• guest
• family, and
• master bathroom.

When developing property, you don’t always need to build all three. However, if space and budget dictates, you should definitely consider this in your project scope as it will greatly enhance the value of your property.

When it comes to bathroom style, the most frequently used styles are American, English, Southwestern, Victorian, and the Country look. The final decision of the property developer would be to choose one that matches his target market. Designing a bathroom in a style that does not suit your target market can become a very expensive mistake.

When deciding on the colour of your bathroom, 90% of the time, you should opt for lighter colours, for example white. A dark bathroom will not appeal to many people so should be avoided wherever possible.

One very popular option is to go for the natural look, for example a bathroom containing good looking plants, rocks, and falling water. Again, these options would appeal to a more affluent market and may not appear in a smaller 1 bedroom flat.

You could also install a plant shelf or greenhouse window in the bathtub area if space allows.

The addition of plants is especially useful for the purposes of viewings.  These plants can obviously be removed once you have sold or rented your property.

 

Other natural bathroom ideas are:Property Investing Bathroom Design 2

• Natural lighting.

Some people have skylights installed in their bathrooms. This brings the feeling of a natural relaxing environment.

Halogen lights look much better than bulbs and fluorescent lights and should also be considered.

• Natural accessories:

These include objects made up of wood or Bamboo. One important aspect of these accessories is that they are durable and don’t break easily.  Again, don’t worry how expensive any accessories are, as they can be removed once your outcome of a sale or let has been achieved.

When designing a bathroom, you should consider the three primary sources of lighting: ceiling-level, ambient and task lighting. Task lighting could appear around the mirror and throughout the room, for example near your taps, doorknobs, towel bars and toilet paper holder.

If necessary, your bathroom design should also consider using larger tiles to create a sense of space, or rectified porcelain tiles. The rectified porcelain tiles have narrower grout lines making them more pleasing to the eye.

You could also change the door style of the bathroom by using sliding doors especially when the property you are developing is small. For larger bathrooms, you could add a glass sliding door to divide the bathing area and toilet area. The options are limitless.

By planning your bathroom design carefully, you should be able to work with your project manager to create a design that works not just for the property but also for your potential market and most importantly your budget!

 

 

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