Stick to what you know and you can’t go far wrong!
I recently completed my first building development and have learnt that I should stick to what I know – construction project management.
Seduced by the idea that developers make a good return, I bought a listed house in need of a substantial amount of work. It also had an attached stable and hayloft from the days last century when it used to be a pub. I thought that theses ancillary buildings would make a nice new unit.
Unfortunately the conservation department did not agree and I learned my first two lessons of development very painfully:
- are you really wise to buy a listed property as a development?
- are you being realistic about what you can do or are you getting greedy.
A year later we had abandoned the idea of three units and had won a two unit scheme on appeal. Then came the next blow!
RBS had agreed the loan on an understanding that they would support the development finance once planning permission had been obtained. During the planning struggle their lending criteria had changed and they were no longer offering support.
My next lesson:
- Make sure you do some sensitivity analysis and be realistic about whether the development still makes sense at the top end of your analysis.
We eventually found another lender, care of Clayhall financial services, whom we met at the Listed Property Show, and we could finally get down to building.
The travails of working on a thatched property with mud walls and no straight lines I had anticipated. I knew that I would need a mixture of fixed price and daywork trades. 
What I had not anticipated was how difficult it would be to run this project and keep up the day job.
Next lesson:
- Stick to what you know.
As you know, we project manage building work for clients so I thought that this would be one of the current portfolio of projects that we were managing. Of course, given a choice of looking after one of my other clients or my project the other clients always won out.
I soon realised that what I needed was – a Project Manager!
It’s all finished now and it does look great. It’s been fascinating acting as a client and it has led to a number of changes in the way we handle clients and take them through the process but it does tell me that wearing one hat is enough.
I’m sticking with Project Management from now on!
