The riskiest approach to investing
There was a post on the neighbourhood Facebook page yesterday where a local family stated they were renovating their house, and wanted recommendations for electricians, plumbers, painters, concreters etc.
I felt a moral duty to speak out as this is THE MOST RISKY approach to renovating possible.
I commented that they should look for a qualified builder to do the work and not commission the various trades separately. I did not even broach the subject of using an architect first as this would probably alienate them straight away as people misguidedly think that means more expense when in fact, often the opposite is true and that initial fee saves the hundreds of thousands over the life of the building.
Next comes a comment on my response that says if you do the owner builder course, you should be OK.
But let me tell you while the course may cover the basics, it takes years and years to learn about quality building.
Even after 40 years of architectural practice on more than 800 projects, I am still learning.
Just yesterday I met with a builder who had renovated his apartment and shared a BIG lesson on the dos and donts of waterproofing a tiny bathroom space. He had years of experience in commercial work and was used to seeing the millions of problems that result from water penetration into the bedding under the tiling, gradually eating away the cabinets and causing deadly mould.
Mould is another story- I went to a gripping seminar on that one- but that is worth a whole article.
Please don’t try to do renovations by yourself without expert guidance. The Block and other TV home makeover programmes make good television, but there is no way I would buy anything renovated by a DYI home renovator, however superficially slick it looks because in building it is not just the surface finish that counts, it is what goes on under the finishes that counts.
Opal Tower in Sydney is a good example. That was constructed by a qualified building company! There are hundreds of apartment buildings around the country having problems- ask to see the minutes of body corporate meetings before signing any contract on an apartment.
If you are buying a renovated house, ask who did the work and if it was a string of subcontractors or a DYI with no overarching qualified person in control, be worried.
For more information on architectural and building process, head to my website