Diary of a rookie house renovator.....

I saw this on Social Media - made me laugh, but a lot of good lessons in there....

1 month refurb project......

Day 1: Get property and phone every trade in town and ask for recommendations.

Day 4: Get in quotes, accept electrician and heating engineer as they are ‘real trades’ and be totally shocked that a plasterer, kitchen fitter, decorator etc dares to charge more than minimum wage for the time they are actually on site. Look at a lot of showrooms.

Day 20: electrics and heating are now done, these rip off tradesmen in white vans who are taking the piss can stuff it, your doing it yourself.

Day 22: Look back admiringly at your shoddy workmanship and congratulate yourself on the money you’re saving by not hiring these jokers. You can work evenings and weekends and get it done.

Day 30: You’ve now sat down and worked out your saving on tradesmen has worked out at less than minimum wage. You’re exhausted and (almost) worked out that it would be better to do overtime at the job you can do and pay people to do what you now realise you can’t do.

Day 35: Get your household bills in and along with lost potential rent/mortgage costs realise you have wasted so much time trying to save £1000 that you’ve lost far more in running costs and rent not coming in.

Day 36: Call back the trades that you’ve now realised do a job you can’t do and may even be worth more than £16k a year. They are all booked up and not too interested in your project anymore as there’s regular customers keeping them busy. Blast the Facebook pages and get Krystian and Kev who are cheap.

Day 40: Krystian and Kev have charged you for 2 days and all you’ve got to show for it are full ashtrays.

Day 42: persevering with Krystian and Kev isn’t working, you’ve worked out why they are cheap. Maybe you need to get the real tradesmen back but they’re too expensive.

Day 45: Bite the bullet and pay for real tradesman at a realistic rate. Bite your tongue and don’t argue with the plasterer who wants £160 a day as you’re in the shit. Insist on buying the materials though as they’ll rip you off with supplying them.

Day 50: Realise it would have already been done weeks ago if you’d have made good decisions in the first place. Not to worry, they start in 3 days.

Day 53: cavalry arrive, they start work but are massively held back by wrong or substandard materials and refuse to fit some of the crap you’ve bought.

Day 58: they get the job done as they have experience and tools. Still be confused why a tradesmen with 20 years experience, business costs, £5k of tools in their van doesn’t cost the same as an Aldi checkout assistant though.

Day 59: Argue over invoices as you provided the materials. Struggle to understand why a full bathroom refit is more than a £350 bathroom suite. B&Q said it was a complete suite and now the fitter wants money for silicone and waste pipe. Surely that stuff doesn’t cost more than £1.80?

Day 63: penny finally drops, there’s sundries involved along with the materials you’ve provided. You’ve pissed your tradesmen off, you’re back to square one on the next refurb as they won’t come back. Trev who recomended his prized contacts with you is also pissed off with you as his contacts are asking why he recommended such a muppet.

Day 68: Final snagging. All the bits you forgot or what falls between trades, look for a handyman multi trade.

Repeat ‘cost saving’ process from beginning and reach same conclusion and finish up on day 100.

I see this shit every week.

#geaprop #architect #architecture #entrepreneur #entrepreneurgoals #entrepreneurlife #proprefurbed #hmoinvestment #interiordesign #properties #property #propertydeveloper #propertybrothers #propertydeals #propertydevelopers #propertydevelopment #propertyentrepreneur #propertyinvestment #propertynews #propertyrenovation #propertysales #propertysourcing #ukproperty #ukpropertydeals #ukpropertydeveloper #ukpropertyinvesting #ukpropertyinvestment #ukpropertyinvestors #ukpropertymarket