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#006
The 5 Step Guide to Onboarding a Main Contractor on Your Next Project
The Right Way…​​
So why am I talking about this?
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A reoccurring thought I have is that we are taught in the property world to “get educated” - educate yourself on stacking deals, sourcing, raising finance, purchasing and lending. And then we walk straight into a project thinking it will be easy enough, and we’ll just get the builders in.
Often, once someone has been through a project start to finish, they will say dealing with builders and getting the project finished to a good standard was the hardest part however. Yet, we tend pay this area the least amount of attention when entering the deal.
This is why I am talking about how to onboard a main contractor properly in this month’s article, so you can have the hands-off scenario: where you pay a fair price, for good quality work, to one contractor, with minimal hassle & stress.
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Two Things To Note Before Moving Forwards
Two things to note here - the majority of builders want to do good work, and often become disillusioned with clients not being organised themselves. Secondly, as a client, you lose all negotiating leverage once you’ve signed the contract & have handed over the keys to your project – so it’s imperative you set the job up properly before works start.
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During my previous career in construction management, and now through my own property portfolio, development business & consultancy work, I see refurbishments & new builds day in, day out so I should know a thing or two about setting up a project for success. Read on to understand more…
Spoiler alert – you need to carry out upfront, diligent planning; you can’t just get the builders in!
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#005
7 Step Guide To Creating Your Perfect HMO
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Do you want to create a high specification HMO, understand all the regulations and not have a builder run rings around you?
If so, read this 7 step guide below….
​I’m hoping this blog is pretty relevant to a lot of readers, as the topic of high spec HMO’s is something I deal with a lot. HMO’s have been (and still are) one of the most popular property investment strategies of the last 15 years or so, with many investors successful in creating businesses around this multi-let model.
I was one of these relatively early adopters and purchased our first HMO 11 years ago, and we have continued to invest and let HMO’s ever since. The majority of our portfolio is professional HMO’s, so we should know a thing or two about creating a good shared space.
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Additionally within my consultancy business, 75% of the clients I work with are trying to establish a premium HMO brand. The emphasis here is on ‘premium’ - when I first started, design led HMO’s weren’t really a thing. For some context here, 10 years ago a grey feature wall in the lounge set you apart from the crowd! However as the HMO market has professionalised in all areas; regulation, tenant type & design, it has become more important than ever to nail this strategy in each of these respective areas.
Over the next couple of pages I’ve made a couple of assumptions: you have already found your goldmine area; done your numbers; and know your market. In this article therefore, we are going to be talking about the intricacies of buying and refurbishing a design-led HMO, and most importantly not letting the builder run rings around you! Let’s get into the timeline of events below….
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#004
As a developer & investor you are probably breaking the law in the eyes of the Health & Safety Executive when refurbishing your properties…
Sounds extreme doesn’t it….. however it’s unfortunately probably true! Read on to understand the simple steps you can take to protect yourself, your business & your tradespeople.
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(And yes this applies to you on your simple BTL that needs a new bathroom & a lick of paint!)
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3 caveats from me before we begin…
The first thing I need to caveat here is that this article isn’t going to be a H&S rant about how everything should stop on your projects and how unsafe everything is!
The second is that I am not a H&S bore who doesn’t understand the practicalities of refurbishing properties as a small developer.
My final caveat is that I will introduce some perspective when its starts getting a bit scary!
So if you want to understand the simple steps to ensure you are compliant & legal, make a few mental notes & take some action on the details below….
To take a step backward before we move forward, and to understand why I’m talking about this topic, it will probably help to understand my background and simple aim for sitting down to write these articles. If we start with the latter; my aim is to take the good principles from the corporate construction world, and simplify them to improve the property development world. This month’s work will be based around H&S, and something called CDM Regulations (which we’ll get to explaining shortly!).
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#003
Want to save money on your construction projects?
Building contractors price a job on how much they want it, not necessarily how much it costs...
I'm expanding on this topic from a recent Instagram post I wrote, mainly because I think this isn't talked about enough in property circles and should be highlighted...
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I am hopefully well placed to comment on this after spending nearly a decade on construction sites as a site manager & planner dealing with tradespeople, plus another 10 years as a property investor & developer. Read on to understand how, with this knowledge, you can make finding tradespeople cheaper & less painful...
I think a lot of people believe they hold the chips when employing tradespeople, whether this is using a main contractor or employing individual trades. With this train of thought, people tend to assume because they've got cash to spend and the contractor needs work, it should be relatively simple to find a good contractor to complete their project.
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In reality this is not quite how it works, however I don't blame people for thinking this way - in a black & white sense it should work like this. However as there is with all things in life & business, there is a grey area. Within this grey area is where the contractor is looking back at you trying to work out if they want the work.
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There are a few variables here, with the primary one being how much work the contractor currently has on - if they're flat out busy they will still price your job, however just increase their price. If they do get the job, it's a bonus and it's worth the hassle of rejigging their calendar & workload. I don't blame them for this either - a self employed plumber or electrician doesn't get a yearly bonus or annual wage increase as is the norm in the corporate world, so they take the cream when they can. And let's face it, it's no different to what Uber does every Friday & Saturday night!
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The other variables to note are to do with risk, user friendliness & trust.......
#002
The time, cost, quality triangle
I tend to bang on about this triangle quite a lot! It get's mentioned in my social media posts, talked through with my clients & I will chat to anyone about it if we talk refurbishment or new build for longer than 60 seconds...
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For good reason though; this 3 sided shape sums up project management in three words, and narrows the focus to what we are all trying to achieve.
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There is problem with this pesky triangle though - we very rarely realise all three when we carry out our refurbishment & new build projects, most of the time we only ever achieve two of the three.
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Let me explain....
If you want exceptional quality, carried out in the shortest timeframe possible on your refurbishment project; it will cost you quite the sum.
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If you want the cheapest price and the works carried out in the shortest timeframe possible; you are going to sacrifice quality.
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If you want great quality & good value; it's probably going to take a while to complete.
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So now we've established what this triangle represents, I should probably provide you with a disclaimer; unless you have plenty of cash, you can't really ever achieve this holy grail of project management. As most of you reading this are property investors - as I am too - having an abundance of cash to throw at a project isn't going to cut the mustard. What I can do though is help you get somewhere near 3 out 3..... let's aim for a solid 2.5 out of 3!
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Now we don't want to sacrifice on anything ideally, however the most important thing to do........
#001
How much does it cost to refurbish a 4 bedroom HMO in 2023?
For the first blog on the More Than Bricks website I wanted to write something with a bit of value, something you the reader can take some good knowledge from, or at the very least a decent comparison for one of your projects....
We have recently finished the full refurbishment of this HMO, an existing property in our portfolio, purchased in 2015 as a tired 5 bed. In 2015 we carried out a very light refurbishment which literally included a bit of paint, some new furniture & not much else..... back then you could get away with painting a grey feature wall, building a couple of Ikea flat packs and calling it a refurbished professional HMO!
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What can I say, we were building the business on evenings & weekends and had no budget - I wouldn't change a thing!
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At the beginning of this year Hayley & I started planning ahead and thinking about which house needed reinvestment next - don't think you can run a HMO portfolio without pumping some cash back in every year - and Lumley Road got the nod. It was decided from the outset that we would convert from a 5 bedroom house, with two compromised first floor bedrooms to a more spacious 4 bed whilst moving one of the house bathrooms.