Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it – David Starr Jordan
Welcome to year 2014. To all our readers, we wish you success and joy in the New Year. Know this: we are committed to your success in real estate investment and to start the New Year, we’ll be looking at the steps you need to take if you intend to build your own house this year. And if you already have one or more already, we hope you’ll gain more insight from these tips or at least reinforce what you already know. I hope this will complement your goals for year 2014.
Step 1: Decision
The starting point of all great achievements is a decision. You need a clear vision of what you want and specific goals you need to achieve that will take you to where you desire. When applied to real estate, it means you need to decide where you plan to live, the type of house, the cost and the specific preference that will make it a home for you and your family.
Decide to own your property this year or to own more. Decide to make the necessary sacrifices in lifestyle that this decision may require. Remember that where there is a will, there will be a way.
Step 2: Form a team
No one succeeds alone. You need a good team to win. To achieve your goal this year, you need a team of professionals and artisans. You need an estate surveyor/valuer, an estate agent, a legal practitioner, an architect, a builder, a project manager, various workmen and artisans.
You do not necessarily need all these people but depending on your circumstances, you definitely need most of them at one stage or the other. Your near best way of getting them is through referral, someone who knows them and preferably had used their services, to refer them to you. You also don’t need to wait until every other piece of the puzzle is in place before you start forming your team. Once you have a set goal, form your team.
Step 3: Acquire the land
One of the most important steps is the land on which you’ll build. If you already have a piece of land, then this step is a done deal. But if you do not have a parcel of land yet, you need to work towards that. And I believe what you need to think about at this stage is location, location and location.
Depending on what you want to do with the property, a mistake in location could mean the difference between happiness and its opposite. This reminds me of a friend of mine who decided to buy a cheap land and build a luxury house on the land. This would have been great but for the fact that he forgot to consider the location. The area had bad roads and was quite rough.
His house was like a palace in the midst of a jungle. And no wonder that within a few months of his moving into the completed house, he had unwanted visitors at night about once every month. He had to abandon the property and move into a rented apartment in a more secure neighborhood.
Accessibility is also something to consider. This is the closeness of the land to road or special interest areas to you. This could include your children’s school, your spouse’s place of business or your work place. It could also include your place of worship or whatever else that is important to you.
If you have bought the land from traditional land owners, you should understand that you will incur additional cost whenever you want to start the building. It is almost common knowledge that these individuals could insist on the payment of ‘foundation,’ ‘fencing’ and ‘roofing’ fees.
In short, they will attempt to collect all sorts of levy from a builder or disrupt such projects. Find out what you need to prepare for from others who have built their own houses in the area. And don’t forget to get all the necessary government building and planning approvals you need to get before commencing the project.
Step 4: Choose your style
You need an architect at this stage. I am quite amazed at the large number of individuals who are willing to spend a fortune on building a property but are willing to accept designs from untrained and sometimes uneducated builders because it is cheaper to do so. I do not consider this cost-effective or advantageous.
Many of such houses lack consideration for basic functionalists that will require a professional to see and also most of them are not excellently built. It takes more than ability to arrange blocks together to build a house.
I believe that you will not hand over the construction of a skyscraper for instance to such untrained ‘experts’ if you had such a project in your hand. Definitely, you need to treat your home better than that.
These days, professional architects have access to all kinds of software that will enable you to have a ‘feel’ of the property before the foundation is laid.
You can view on the computer the room size, furniture arrangement, room colors, lighting, door and window arrangement, etc. I know that our local builders do not have the skill to provide you with all these previews that could save you expensive re-structuring costs later.For more information please call on us :08082099012,07031929540