Harry Charalambous – Plan Assist Property Update

Ever dreamed of building your new home or investment property, yet you are so busy working hard at what you do best, you couldn’t possibly get the project off the ground.
The process of self-building can be a resource-stretching time, and you may not have the luxury of being on site when required during the day. These self-builders generally appoint a ‘Main Contractor’ or ‘Project Manager’ with responsibility for making the day-to-day decisions and keeping the project on-track. These can be self-build package companies, architects, project managers, quantity surveyors or builders, and can bring a wealth of experience.
• Advantages:
o Offers you the space to continue in full-time employment or with your day-to-day dedications;
o Less stress;
o Fewer known issues (your project manager can solve these);
o You can stick to the ‘bigger’ decisions;
o Improved knowledge on-site;
o Project managers can offer experienced support to you;
o If instructed to, your Project Manager will ensure your compliance with Building Regs, Planning, Building Control, Health & Safety and your legal requirements as a construction client.
• Disadvantages:
o Project managers can charge around 7-15% of build cost depending on the responsibility you give them, this increases the build cost and therefore reduces your profit.
o Not so involved in the day-to-day decisions, and will have to accept that your project manager will make decisions on your behalf.
o Project managers will not, generally, ‘cut corners’ on health and safety, which can increase costs.

You will need to decide whether or not your experience, ability, resources and lifestyle suit your property project.

Would you employ you for the required tasks?

Once you have identified what suits the project, we recommend engaging the appropriate ‘project partners’ (i.e. the key players in the project; e.g. timber frame company, architect, groundworkers, project managers etc) around you from as early as you can. This will give you a support team that offers lots of knowledge, saves you thousands, and helps you to get your project going!

Sometimes, we cannot see our own mistakes. Whether it is investing, or working, we all need a mentor to provide feedback and show us the fast track to success.

It’s the same game when investing in property. Find a great personal mentor that has vast experience in investment or development game and a genuine desire to see you succeed. Once you have found such a person be willing to accept their feedback because sometimes it is a mentor’s job to tell you what you don’t want to hear. The more knowledge of the investment process you can acquire, the better you manage your investments and have them work for you.

Plan Assist offer a range of property coaching and mentoring packages to enhance your investments and enrich your balanced lives. Call our team on 02 9449 2333 to find out how you can improve as a property investor.

Trade contractor prices have eased thanks to an influx of skilled tradespeople, the Housing Industry Association’s (HIA) Austral Bricks Trade report has found.

The report, released yesterday, also showed trade rates were coming off the boil, relieving price pressure for renovators and home buyers alike.

The HIA-Austral Bricks Trades Price Index eased by 0.2 per cent in the June 2009 quarter to be down by 2.9 per cent in annual terms.

“This evidence of an easing in prices and a freeing up of trades people confirms that 2009 is a good time to engage in renovating an existing property or building a new home,” HIA’s chief economist Harley Dale said.

Remember, Plan Assist do more than just loan strategies – they do project management of renovations to medium sized commercial projects. Email our project management team at projects@planassist.com.au to find out how we can assist your next renovation.

At Plan Assist, we do more than just Home Loans, we make property investors!

Plan Assist help families just like yours find their dream home or obtain their next property investment, even if they have no experience in searching or finding that great bargain.

Our acquisition team, mortgage advisory team and project management team are ready to act on the favourable buyer’s market conditions right now in Sydney.

To find out more about securing your next property purchase, visit our website or call 02 9449 2333 to talk to one of our property specialists.