Posted by Kevin Barnes on Thu, Feb 05, 2009 @ 12:27 PM
I hope everyone is surviving the cold weather and weathering this economy!
I just got finished reading a great article about the residential remodeling and construction industry and how it is being impacted by the current economy. Clearly, spending on home improvements and remodeling has taken a big hit with the decline in home prices and stricter lending practices. While most homeowners have historically viewed buying a home as not only investing in a place to live, but also as a means of building wealth due to the appreciation of a homes value. However, these recent trends (decline in home value and stricter lending) have exposed some of the risks associated with buying a home. This in turn may lead many people to look at renting home versus owning.
During the housing boom, exactly the opposite was true. Many people in the renters market were suddenly able to buy their first home due to rapidly appreciating home values and aggressive lending tactics. During this time, it did not make sense for investors and owners of rental properties to invest signficantly in their properties, other than general maintenance and upkeep. With the anticipated increase in number of people looking to rent versus ownership, its a great time to invest in improvements and upgrades to your exisitng rental and income producing properties.
Please feel free to contact us if you need any assistance in determining what type of investments will make sense in your property(s).
Posted by Kevin Barnes on Tue, Jun 10, 2008 @ 03:51 PM
As I sit to write the first official blog for our website I thought it would be appropriate to talk a little about the reasons we decided to embrace the design-build concept and incorporate it into our business model. Prior to embracing this concept, we typically operated under the conventional approach where a homeowner would first hire an architect or designer to put there ideas on paper and then go out to bid to the usual 3-5 contractors. Unfortunately, I was beginning to notice a trend in this process: this was when the homeowner would find out their beautifully designed project would cost significantly more than they had budgeted. Now the homeowner would go back to the architect to redisign, which meant additional design fees, or would simply choose the lowest bidder to minimize the fiscal damage, or sometimes even attempt to run the project themselves.
On some occassions the latter 2 can work, but we have all heard horror stories of projects gone awry by choosing the low bidder on a project. I experienced a circumstance 2 years ago where a homeowner decided to manage the project themselves because all the bids were higher than they had budgeted. They felt fortunate to hire some local carpenters at a great hourly rate to get their project going. Unfortunately, after the 1st week and a significant amount of demolition, the owner of the company was arrested for DUI (not his first) and would not be returning to the job any time soon.
As I did some research, I realized the tremendous benefits of the design-build approach. It not only provides the homeowner single source accountability, but the cost of the project is handled up-front. This means that before a design agreement is signed, the overall cost of the project is discussed to make sure that the homeowner is educated and knowledgable before any design work is completed. In other words, a design-build company wants to make sure they can design and build the intended project for the amount of money the homeowner anticipates spending or has set aside for the project. Then, the design-build company has a responsibility to design the specified project within the target budget range. Its a true win-win situation!
This process makes a great deal of sense for both parties and helps to build a stronger client-contractor relationship. If you are considering any type of remodeling or renovation project, I would highly recommend finding a good design-build company with solid references.
Good luck and Happy Remodeling!
Kevin Barnes