For years to come - my forage into professional D.I.Y

I have decided to set up my own small business doing professional D.I.Y (if there is such a thing) for friends and family. I am so sick of paying the prices that so many builders are charging at the moment, even in this market. I am not going to use the dreaded two words but you know what I am talking about don’t you. I am so incredibly sick of reading the words ‘credit’ and ‘crunch’ in the same sentence and the thought that I am going to have to endure this bite size word combination for possibly years to come makes me feel a little queasy. I already avoid ‘cc’ articles and have started to sweep my eyes over the morning newspaper in order to pin point and swat the blighters from a distance before I have the displeasure of reading them. I doubt I am missing much because you know as soon as you spot those gems that the article is going to be predictably uncreative and unimaginative and most likely mixed with technical blabla that you won’t understand.

Several of my friends and family need a few minor home improvements done and I am willing to help them out with anything from building garden benches and tables to laying foundations for extensions. Of course I am not a complete novice. I used to work on a construction site a few years ago and earned quite a lot of money doing it but I gave it up to design and sell Amdega conservatories. That was something that fulfilled my artistic side and gave me the opportunity to move back into the sector where I really felt like I had talent; sales.

Since then, although I thoroughly enjoy my current job, I have missed working out in the open air and felt as though I should make use of the skills that I have gained through my life. If I could use those skills to save family and friends money and improve their quality of life then why not offer my help?

I would buy the tools I needed according to the jobs I was given so that I could charge them to whomever I will be working for at the time. I can then offer cost prices on the materials and I am well informed to source the cheapest and best quality stone and timber. I would arm myself with a few basic power tools but there will be no need to purchase heavy duty power tools until I actually – if ever – need to use them.

While I was working in construction we used the well known Black&Decker brand. I knew I could get a quality second hand cordless drill from the site where I used to work. Those tools work great for years so I know I won’t be getting anything unsafe. My son has volunteered to help out for a bit of extra cash and of course I want to make sure he isn’t going to hurt himself using any rubbish equipment.

I have so far thought of everything but a name for the business. When I do I am going to title this blog with it.

Easter 2009 - DIY Explosion Predicted

The Easter weekend is often a time for spring cleaning and getting round to the odd DIY jobs that have been ignored through the winter. This year, with more of us eager to save money, it seems that we could be set to see something of a DIY boom this April – as we plan to stick around in our current homes instead of moving, and decide to take on jobs ourselves over hiring a professional.

This has been reiterated by two surveys from M&S Money and Halifax respectively. In an article at aboutproperty.co.uk, they highlight that 64 percent of people are likely to attempt DIY this year, instead of paying the extra cost for a tradesman. Despite this recession-influenced confidence, Halifax found that almost half of the people they asked (43 percent) admitted that they weren’t as sufficient with odd jobs around the home as their parents. “Fitting a new kitchen or bathroom, and tiling, were the jobs most people were most reluctant to do.”

Such attitudes regarding our parent’s generation are justified. The concept of DIY was really kick-started during the 60s and 70s – amidst the well-documented trend of social liberation and independence. Philosophers, thinkers, and writers such as Alan Watts and Stewart Brand who were dissatisfied with the impractical nature of the education system and the increasing dependence on consumables and “professionals” championed the financial, physical, and mental worth of taking practical jobs into our own hands.

Although the notion of DIY has always been there since (and even permeated into other aspects of culture such as music and mail-order business), it seems we are still to see a rebirth of some description, leading a similar wave of DIY promotion in the British press as seen in the 60s from Watts and Brand.

The Telegraph is one such publication that is eager to highlight the fiscal savings made from Doing it Yourself – and they add some intriguing advice in order to save even more. They advise to search around before buying tools, and to make note of Easter deals and offers likely to be given by superstores such as B & Q and Homebase – these will be advertised on their websites.

Aside from promoting DIY outright, the one thing that seems to be connecting the online and offline press, and the banks, is the essential need to confirm what is covered by your home insurance – and some point out the tasks such as wiring and plumbing may invalidate insurance policies. Additional accidental damage cover may need to be considered – just to be on the safe side.

Can't be bothered to do DIY for lodgers anymore

I rent out a couple of properties to tenants and have done for the past five years. I have recently been thinking of selling due to the amount of DIY time it can suck up, but obviously at this current time its not an easy time to do such.

I have delayed selling to wait for the outcome of the Treasury and its potential changes to Stamp Duty.

Arguably many BTL properties fall below the £125,000 threshold, so would not be impacted, but the sale of some of these properties may be held up as buyers moving up the property ladder await any reduction in Stamp Duty on higher value properties.

There are good reasons to believe that the house sector is weathering the storm:

• Tenant Demand
  
  Evidence of good rental growth across the UK can be found not only in the latest RICS Lettings Survey with a headline of "Lettings market shines bright in housing gloom" but also in Paragon's Buy To Let Index for July where yields across the UK are 6.4% with average growth in the last year of 9.3%. Additional demand is being driven by the reduced availability of mortgages at 100% or above for first time buyers who will need to rent until they can save up the necessary deposit and with higher interest rates being charged on borrowing at thee 95% level , it may be more expensive to pay a mortgage than rent for the time being.



• Mortgage Funding
  
  Current funding is based on the known performance of the Buy To Let mortgage book and the recently released CML figures look relatively benign with only 1.1% of loans in arrears over 90 days compared to the broader market figure of 1.33% but still up from 0.73% at the end of 2007. Any significant deterioration would cause lenders to re-trench further at a time when BTL landlords are probably the best hope for the property market absorbing the CML predicted 28,000 repossessions in the second half of the year.




• Mortgage Availability
  
  One year on from the credit crunch, the BTL sector has fewer lenders with tighter credit criteria and risk based pricing encouraging landlords to invest more capital in return for better interest rates. Pricing as low as 5.09% for a 2 year fix at 60% loan to value with higher pricing is applied by those lenders still willing to lend to 85% but with increasing dependency on retail deposits to fund new lending the cost is reflected with rates more in the range 6.5% to 7.5%.




• Preferred Property Sectors
  
  The new homes sector had always been popular with investors in a rising market - where there was no property chain and the opportunity to buy off plan with completion up to eighteen months away held out the prospect of capital appreciation for little risk in the early years of the new millennium. By early 2007 some developers were creating artificial incentives to lure in investors leading to concerns over the true value of developments where upwards of 40% of the units were sold to investors. This has led to rental problems and geographical concentration risk and lenders have placed a 75% LTV restriction and full transparency on the component parts of the transaction. This is bound to impact the house building sector and the results of Taylor Wimpey on 27 August announcing a 96% fall in pre-tax profits and exceptional items of a further £1.5Bn must reflect some of these issues. Effectively the development of sites has mostly ceased as builders concentrate on selling existing stock before developing subsequent phases. Whilst house prices have eased there are not sufficiently large volumes of properties being sold to suggest a collapse of the broader market.



• Market Confidence
  
  Paragon's July Trends Review reveals that investor sentiment towards acquiring further property remains strong with twice as many landlords looking to add properties than intending to sell. This is driven by a belief that they can secure a lower price as well as being high tenant demand being a key factor for 39.3% of them.



• Feel good Factor
  
  There is one additional confidence element that impacts the whole country and that is the somewhat unexpected "feel good factor" that has been created by the well deserved success of Team GB in Bejing. Not only has it dominated the headlines and pushed away the doom and gloom headlines on the property market and economy at large but has created a genuine interest in London 2012. When France won the Football World Cup in 2006 the GDP growth in the next quarter was 0.5% above the predicted rate. The benefit to the UK may last sufficiently long enough for other potential positive measures to show through such as a Base Rate reduction of 0.25% in early November or, heaven forbid, the Government untangling the Stamp Duty fiasco with a stepped aligned on price bands and a raising of the "zero" band to £250,000 - is that too much to hope for ?