The final touches to your property development
December 31, 2008
The purpose of developing a property is to sell it. You’re not creating a labour of love, you’re working on a viable business plan that will, hopefully, make you money in the long run. Costs should be kept down, budgets should be kept to and schedules should be adhered to.
When the development is complete, and the time comes to sell the property and realise your return on investment, time is very much of the essence. Every day wasted costs you more in terms of homeowner loans and mortgage repayments, whittling away your profit margin. A quick sale is essential.
When it comes to selling your property, you need to make it as inviting as possible for potential buyers. This means making your property look like a home, a home that they could see themselves living in. If you try to sell your property as an empty shell, it will look clean, but it will also look uninviting.
Take a little time and furnish the house, to make a home out of your development. Lay carpets, put up curtains and install furniture. You can always take it away with you later, so it won’t cost you any more in the long run, but the time taken to dress your property will make it sell much quicker.
Popularity: 12%
Don’t neglect the garden in a property development
December 28, 2008
It’s important to remember when developing a property that you need to sell the property when you’re finished in order to make your profit. For every month you hang on to a property once your development is complete you’ll end up paying an extra mortgage payment, which can eat away your profit.
So a quick turnaround is essential. For this reason you to make sure that your property makes a great first impression for your potential buyers. It’s important to remember that most buyers make their minds up about a property in the first 12 seconds, and that is often before they even get inside the house!
Therefore your house needs to have curb appeal. Your house needs to look good from the roadside, which means you need a well maintained garden. Neglecting the garden, while not necessarily reducing the value of your house, will cause its sale to take a lot longer. Ensure that your law is green, well watered and cut. Make sure you don’t have any litter in your garden, that your plants are looked after and that your fence and gate are maintained.
First impressions count, and will make the difference between a sale, and you holding onto your property for too long.
Popularity: 12%
Property development as an investment opportunity
December 26, 2008
If you’re looking for a way to invest money, there are plenty of different opportunities open. For example, you could put your savings into a high interest account and leave them there to grow, where they’ll increase by the interest rate each year. It’s not the best way to maximise your savings, but it is a very safe one.
You could also try investing in stocks and shares, which is a more high risk enterprise, but yields higher returns. It does represent a minefield of pitfalls though, so isn’t for everyone.
Another way to make the most of your savings is to invest in property. Footballer Robbie Fowler is one of the richest footballers in the world, not because he was paid so much as a player, but because he invested his money in property in Liverpool. It worked for Robbie, it could work for you as well.
The collapsing housing market has caused many people to get twitchy and sell up, but property is still a safe investment. Especially if you follow the standard investing mantra of buy low and sell high. Right now, property is very low, making it the right time to buy and invest.
Popularity: 17%
Stick to your budget when developing a property
December 23, 2008
Property development, it has to be remembered, is all about profit. The more you spend when you’re developing a property, the lower your profit will be when you come to sell the house. Therefore, spending more to make something look grander isn’t going to make you more profit, no matter how good you think it looks.
Every property in each area has a ceiling price, a maximum that you will be able to achieve when you come to sell it. So if you’re developing a modest three bedroom semi, adding granite work surfaces in the kitchen, installing the latest Mitsubishi air conditioning and building a wet room in the bathroom won’t generate you any more profit.
It’s important to remember that you’re not developing a property to live in, so your own personal tastes and the décor you’d like to see aren’t what you should be doing. Keep it cheap, think of your profit and always stick to you budget.
You can go the other way though and cut costs too much. The finish of your property is important, so buying a cheap kitchen and installing it yourself to save costs isn’t going to save you money in the long run.
Popularity: 13%
How many toilets should my development have?
December 21, 2008
It’s a well known fact the kitchen and the bathroom are the rooms that sell a property, so getting them right in a development is a prerequisite. They are the two rooms where you need to spend in order to make your return on investment, but one thing many people don’t realise is how many bathrooms, or toilets, they actually need in a house in order for it to reach its full potential.
The simple rule of thumb is that you need one toilet for every three and a half rooms, so if you have a four bedroom house and it only has one bathroom, you’d be best served installing another toilet. You can do that either as an en-suite to the largest room, or as a downstairs toilet in a utility room.
However some developers miss the mark when they develop a property and end up installing an extra toilet in a three bedroom, or even a two bedroom house. This is a waste of time, money and most importantly space. When you’re developing a two bedroom house, space is very much at a premium, so compromising the space in the property to include an extra toilet is a mistake.
Think about your target market before you make a rash decision and install an extra toilet where one isn’t needed.
Popularity: 13%
Latest Property Headlines
- Beautify your Bathroom
- Maintenance of the house
- It’s all in the detail
- Areas of the house to invest in
- New site for Morrisons
- The 2010 election
- Is Spring the best time to sell houses?
- Alternative energy for your house build
- Finding the right bargains
- Will the property market effect your election vote?