Best Kisumu Property Developer: 16 Helpful Tips for Building Your first Apartment.

As a Kisumu Property Developer of many years, we have been reflecting on how first time home or apartment owners approach development. Many people desire to have resources to build a house, whether residential or commercial. They evaluate options for funding and the strength to withstand the financial constraints to build a house. This is a good move because property increase in value and so investment in real estate property is always a good investment which should be approached correctly to realize the gain.
That said and done, it’s important that anyone who is ready to do property development need to have some tips or areas of wisdom in approaching real estate development. As a Kisumu property developer, we always share with our customers some key things they should have in mind when seeking to undertake their first development. This not only helps the client but also help us as a developer once we have started the project. It doesn’t help us to start a project if it’s going to stall after only 20% of the work is done.
So here are the 16 tips that we share with our clients and today we share with you as a real estate developer.

Contents hide

1 Related Post

2 1. Get your plan in place

3 2. Budget more than you expect to spend

4 3. Pick the right contractor

5 4. Understand your agreement

6 5. Get your financing in place

7 6. Communicate always

8 7. Look for ways to save

9 8. Get an independent Inspector

10 9. Know your rights just in case something goes wrong

11 10. Work with landscape

12 11. Safety first

13 12. Keep it affordable

14 13. Leave it to the professionals

15 14. Stick to your budget

16 15. Go slow on the latest trends

17 16. Properly describe the project when seeking contractors

18 Conclusion

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1. Get your plan in place

Before you start any work or discussion with a contractor, it’s important to have a plan. If you have not looked for an architect to draw your plan, you can ask your contractor to get you a plan or link you with an architect to draw a plan for you. It helps you understand where the work is going, the materials that will be used, how the spaces will be utilized and the costs of doing the work. Ideally, the plan does not have the cost but from the plan, you can get costing done for your house or apartment. The plan should be approved by the relevant regulatory authority.
The benefits of drawing a plan are so many. For example, a plan drawn by a qualified architect will help you get a better understanding of your needs, better design, as well as avoiding design errors, minimize the cost associated with correcting of errors associated with lack of a plan and so many others advantages. It’s our desire that we help our customers get the right solutions and service that is lasting and profitable.

2. Budget more than you expect to spend

When you are budgeting for a project, it’s important to make allowance for price changes as well as unforeseen eventualities. This will help you even if some unforeseen eventualities come up. Budgeting principles should help you in drawing up a budget for your project. One of the principles of budgeting is to be conservative, not optimistic. You approach it with an attitude of underestimating incomes and overestimating expenses.
This will ensure that you don’t allocate less money for an expense. It’s better to save from overstated expense than find your allocation for an expense not enough and having to raise more money to finance that expense. Budgeting principles also advocate for teamwork and consultation. When drawing up a budget for your project, consult widely.

real estate developer kisumu, property developer kisumu 1 — Completed Rental Apartment in Kisumu

3. Pick the right contractor

As a Kisumu real estate developer, we would not wish to see a customer suffer. Whether you are our customer or not, it’s not our wish to see you suffer. One way of ensuring that you start in the right way is to get a good contractor. A construction company or an individual contractor offering a construction service must be qualified, experienced and registered.
You must be able to check the certificates of the individual contractors working for a construction company to see their level of qualification. You should also be able to see what they have done or capable of doing. If you have ample time, you can even visit some of the sites they have done some work and check for yourself the work. It’s also important to confirm the registration status. This will safeguard you against possible charges from the local authority or construction authority.

4. Understand your agreement

Always enter into a binding agreement with your contractor. The agreement should outline all the details which will ensure the contractor does a good job and also protect you against any claim. Get a lawyer to draw the contract on your behave but discuss the details of the contract with your contractor before it’s written down.
Avoid as much as possible a verbal agreement. It’s difficult to enforce a verbal agreement in a court of law. If something goes wrong, then you will likely to incur losses since the project is yours and you cannot run away from it.

construction company in kisumu — construction site

5. Get your financing in place

Whenever you want to build a house, residential or commercial, the starting point is finance. Before you think of looking for an architect to draw a plan, you must be having some money. There are occasions where people have drawn a plan and used the plan to secure funding. How will you finance your apartment? This is a question you need to ask before you go far. It is going to be purely equity, debt or a combination of both? What are the terms of the financing?
You need to look critically into the financing. If its equity, then you need to ensure that the budgeting for your apartment is properly done so that you don’t get into unforeseen expenses. You should proceed with a project once it’s clear to you how you want it financed. If you are thinking of construction loans, secure the loan before you start the project.

6. Communicate always

Communicate with all parties involved. Contractors, engineer and all parties involved in your construction project. This will help you to put them close, get their own feeling of the progress, detect a possible problem and find a solution ahead of any challenge. Communication effectively will also ensure that let them know your expectations. At all stages of construction, you need to communicate openly and freely so that your expectation is known and felt by all parties working for you.

7. Look for ways to save

This does not mean you change the quality of work to a cheap one. It means that you work diligently to ensure no wastage occurs and if there is a way to minimize cost without compromising on the quality of work and original plan, then it’s an option to be explored. The objective of a plan is to guide the process from the start to the end and so if there is a way you can save money without deviating from the original plan, then it’s fine to pursue.

8. Get an independent Inspector

This should be budgeted for in your project costing so that it doesn’t result into an additional cost to the project. An independent inspector will be more objective and candid. The idea is to get a true and unbiased opinion on the status of the project. An independent inspector should be a registered person in the field of construction whose opinion can be used in a court of law.

9. Know your rights just in case something goes wrong

How do you know your rights? It’s better to have the rights and obligations spelt in a contract. This is an additional case for a written contract. A contract gives rise to rights and obligations for both the investor and developer.

10. Work with landscape

You should plan with the landscape of the plot you want to build an apartment or a house. This will help you in so many ways and will make the end result fit well with the landscape of the area. This means that an architect who will be drawing the plan should visit the site where you want to build and draw having the landscape in mind.

11. Safety first

When planning to build an apartment or a house, safety should always be rank first. The safety of the builders as well as the safety of those who will live in the apartment. Many houses or apartments have come down in Kenya in the past few years due to planning and lack of safety precaution being taken.
Just like it has been observed from the collapsed houses, the main issue has been poor workmanship or poor materials. The owner of the property and the contractor is normally in trouble and end up spending a lot of money before they can get their freedom back and even continue with the project. Attempting to ignore safety considerations is costly and time wasting. It can also prove fatal as have been observed in the past.
Apart from safety during construction, we also advise customers to think of safety during emergencies. There have been several cases of deaths as a result of people not being able to exit fire in buildings.

12. Keep it affordable

At the end of the work, you want to let the apartment to people, so you should have those people in mind before beginning to construct. Will the rate you want to charge after completing the development going to be affordable to your target market? You don’t want to build an apartment that people can’t rent because it’s too costly for your target and if you lower the rent, you will never recover the cost of construction?

13. Leave it to the professionals

When it comes to making a various decision, rely on professionals to guide you. Learn from the professionals before you can be imposing your thoughts on areas which you are not professionally trained. The desire to get a good result should be guided by professionals to realize the true benefit of the project. Consult with professionals at all stages of the project.

14. Stick to your budget

When we started as a Kisumu Property developer a few years back, we would allow clients to interfere with their budgets until one client ran out of money before the project could hit 80% completion. During the course of the project construction, there is a common tendency to alter the project by adding things which originally were not in the project details. This is due to other persuasions or discoveries which you have come across during the currency of construction. To avoid budgetary challenges later, stick to your budget in terms of items so that you don’t engage in spending which was not budgeted for thus consuming money which could have taken care of any price inflation or unforeseen costs.

15. Go slow on the latest trends

Trends are always going to be there in all sectors. Some are good at the introduction stage only for their problem to be detected later. Some technologies appear good value for money but they don’t last long. To avoid trouble, go slow with trends and only adopt a trend which has been tested and is good. This will help you avoid costs of getting into things which don’t last. Some trends are good but there are no good trained personnel locally to implement them.
As a Property developer in Kisumu, we scan for those trends and research on them. This enables us to advice our clients appropriately. You too need to look round before applying a trend for your project. For example, there are customers who have stalled with their projects because they used a wrong technology because it appeared trending and in the process consumed the money for roofing thus stalling the project.

16. Properly describe the project when seeking contractors

To avoid wastage of time in terms of reviewing wrong contractors, you need to include a lot of details in the project description which is used for seeking construction companies. Construction companies should be able to make a judgement which is fully reflective of what is expected from them. If you give scanty information, you may end up with a wrong contractor getting a job which they will not be able to do or will force you to add more money for the work to be done or may end up abandoning your project. All these tips will open your eyes to the work of apartment construction which you want to begin.
Building your first apartment or home is a profiting experience that requires you to take some ample time doing planning. As you review these tips outlined in this article, remember that you want to have a house that will stand the test of time. As a real estate developer in Kisumu, we have helped many people get off to a good start not just in Kisumu but also in the nearby counties of Vihiga, Kakamega, Homabay and Siaya. We are able to mentor you through the development process from start to finish. Get your finances in order and contact us. As a construction company in Kisumu and also serving the other counties like Vihiga, Kakamega, Homabay, Bungoma, Siaya and Busia, We believe in sharing useful information with our customers so that we empower them and help them invest their hard earned money wisely. Talk to us today.

West Kenya Real Estate is a Kisumu Property Developer of choice for many people.

Conclusion

If you are looking a house designs in Kenya or a construction company in Kenya for your next project, think Marble Engineering and Construction Ltd.
We are a Design and Build Construction Company in Kenya with over 25 years of experience in active building construction in Kenya. We mainly do house plans, project planning, building construction, renovations and extensions, institutional building, commercial office blocks and plumbing and drainage services.